Not All Who Wander
by PossumSoul
Summary: When Castle finally loses hope and starts pulling away, he decides to go on one last case with Beckett that takes them to upstate New York. Tensions quickly begin to rise as she fights to tell him how she really feels. (Mid S4, COMPLETE W/ EPILOGUE)
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This would have been another story choice after I finished Leave the Light On, but I set it aside when I started writing With Lying Eyes. But now that I have a lot more of this story mapped out, I've decided to put it out there and see the reaction I get._

 **Prompt: When Castle finally loses hope and starts pulling away, he decides to go on one last case with Beckett that takes them to upstate New York. When they get stranded at a dingy motel for the night, tensions quickly begin to rise as she fights to tell him how she really feels. (Mid S4)  
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* * *

It's beginning to feel strangely empty. It's there, but... hollow now. Like an unbroken egg without a yoke inside.

He's been gone for a week. The only contact she's had with him over the past week is a few texts saying that he needs to focus on writing. His exact words were 'I think I should', like... it was an excuse.

An excuse not to come around.

She didn't push him, accepted it thinking that he was probably just feeling ill and his pride wouldn't let him tell her, let alone ask for help. She thought that he might have gotten over it when they got a body drop yesterday. But when she called him and heard his voicemail, she felt more dejected than anticipated, more let down and disappointed then she was prepared for when he didn't answer. And even more uplifted and felt more longing in her when she had to listen to his voice asking her to leave him a message.

She left him the address, but something about her saying she 'understood' if he was still sick, it felt like she had to tell herself a bold-faced lie.

It's always easier to push it all away and write it all off when he's with her. Always easier to just let things flow between them when he comes by in the morning like he... she can almost physically feel her heart crack when the words 'used to' cement themselves in her mind.

Even as she pushes the doors open to the morgue. "Hey, Lanie, you have anything?"

Lanie looks up with a large soda cup in her hand, sitting at her desk at the other end of the morgue, still sipping through the straw. She swivels herself around in her chair, her eyes going over to the freezer where the victim's body is being kept. "Didn't I already send up the full autopsy?"

Beckett comes to stand, leaning against the slab, feeling a nervous quake in her veins. "I was just..." She looks away and shrugs her shoulders, feigning being alright with whatever situation she realized this morning she's found herself in, "wondering i-if you've found anything new."

Lanie's eyes narrow as she stands up, setting her cup down on her desk. She slowly paces her way over to her, crossing her arms challengingly. "Nothing I didn't tell Javi when he came by this morning."

Beckett can tell that she's starting to get caught. "Oh." Her voice is small as she looks down to the cold metal slab with a raised brow and a nod.

"What's up?" Lanie asks, half caring and half accusatory.

Beckett looks up again, telling her face to express it away and throw her off, but it doesn't work. Lanie knows something is off and has been off for days. "It's nothing." Her voice is too high and pinched. If she doesn't buy it herself, Lanie is sure not to take it as an acceptable answer.

She's called on it by Lanie shifting her hips, pursing her lips, lidding her gaze, and crossing her arms.

Her lips squeeze and move off to the side as the words come up to her throat. "It's Castle."

"Where is he?" Lanie's question doesn't sound like a question. Her brow shoots up and her tone stabs her, like it's a challenge.

She asked when he didn't show up to the scene yesterday, but Beckett threw her off by saying she wanted to get to work. "He says he thinks he should focus on writing."

"And when was this?" Lanie asks, knitting her brow and lowering her gaze.

"Last week." Her voice is still too tight, too nervous. "I haven't seen him since." She painfully admits. "At first, I thought he might have been sick and was afraid to tell me, but... when he didn't show up to the scene yesterday..."

Lanie narrows her eyes and cocks her head off to the side. "Is this why you came down here?"

She didn't know what to expect out of this visit. She didn't really have a set goal when her legs carried her down here. Her subconscious going to the one person that would force her over the edge, maybe. "I don't know." She says with a tight, small shrug of her shoulders. "I-I just..." She says, looking back down to the slab, "can't figure out where it went wrong."

"Can't figure it out or can't admit it?"

Beckett doesn't answer, just looks up to her with nervous, sad, wide eyes, and an arched brow. She can't say it out loud yet. But Lanie's lack of tact is probably the sledgehammer she needs. "Both?"

"Kate..." She sighs and puts a hand on her hip with a shake of her head. "Don't you think that maybe he's tired of waiting?"

And when Lanie says that, she feels the veil of subtext vanish. "Lanie, we're just not ready, okay?" She weakly defends herself. "We need to-to..."

"Uh-uh." Lanie stops her with a wag of her finger, "What _you_ need to do... is go after him while he's still there to go after."

It's a fear that's been scratching at the back of her mind for some time, ever since that case with that blonde bimbo he seemed so infatuated with. The thought that someone else might spark a new interest in him. She looks up to the ceiling, feeling her eyes burn at the thought of him just... losing interest in her like that. Of him moving on from her, like she was just a passing attraction that he never got the chance to stop and enjoy. Like she isn't giving him enough to stick around for.

"Kate, I don't have to be a detective to tell you that the guy's crazy for you." Lanie sasses after a long, contemplating pause.

It's when Lanie's words hit her ears that his words stab her heart. She's found herself replaying that day over in her mind a lot this week, like a song her brain has been stuck on. It was hard to think of when she was recovering. But then when she and Castle got back into step with each other after she came back, the pain started to fade because they seemed to go back to normal, aside from a small ache of guilt. But now that she feels the cold void of his absence, it seems like it's the only memory she can hold on to.

Like the only piece of him she can hold onto for any kind of hope.

And when Lanie sees Kate not moving to immediately throw her off, toss out some off-handed quip to dismiss her, Lanie starts in an obvious, sarcastic tone. "Oh Lanie, you've been drinking medical fluids, you're so crazy, you've spent too much time around dead people."

Beckett looks back up to her, wondering what brought out Lanie's mocking her. "What?"

"What, no snappy comeback about how he's just your partner and that I'm crazy for thinking he might just be a little bit into you?"

It's too late to correct herself, especially now since Lanie is pulling her down a trail. She's lost the ability to lie convincingly. "Oh... uh... no?"

"Kate, you've been fighting tooth and nail to deny it since he started following you around. What changed?"

She feels her body tighten in fear, her muscles constricting her and paralyzing her. "He..." She starts, forcing the words out, "might have... told me... h-how he felt."

Lanie's eyes freeze, her brow raised before pinching together. "When the hell was this?"

Well... it's now or never. She's only ever admitted this to Burke, and even he didn't press her on the issue. "It was... at Montgomery's funeral." Her tone is trying to be casual about it, but it's too forced and shaky.

"Like... _before_ err..."

She swallows thickly, "Right as I got shot."

Lanie's eyes are still glaring over to her, as if being angrily stunned. "I thought you said you couldn't remember your shooting." When Kate only answers with a blink of her burning eyes, she can tell when Lanie's brain clicks everything into place. "You _lied_ to him?!"

"What the hell else what I _supposed_ to tell him, Lanie?!" She shouts in the strongest yet most dishonest voice she's felt come out of her in days.

"The truth?"

"What, after just putting the man who trained me to be a cop since day _one_ in the ground, having the only lead in my mom's case get killed, on top of having just been shot? You want any more reasons why I couldn't handle dealing with that just yet?"

"How 'bout one that makes me give a damn?"

Her anger is getting the better of her, "Lanie, my whole _life_ had just been uprooted! Forgive me for wanting to get back to normal before dealing with the fact that even after I threw him out of my life just days before, him telling me that he loves me."

"Kate, the guy thought you were _dying!_ We all did. What was _he_ supposed to do? Say 'it's been nice working with you'?"

"Lanie, telling him I just didn't remember seemed like the only option I had at the time, okay? It was the only way to get him to stay without breaking his heart!"

"Well, when were you gonna tell him?" She asks, shrugging her shoulders and crossing her arms.

"I-I just... thought that..."

Lanie just pushes her again with a lift of her brow and a purse of her lips.

"That we'd eventually just... get close enough to where it... wouldn't matter all that much."

"You _weren't_ going to tell him?!"

"I thought it would get easier to just forget about it the closer we got, but... Lanie, I never thought that he'd just leave." She says in an honest, scared tone. It scares her. Mostly because Lanie won't stop pushing her. But that's why she came down here anyway. "These past months, I could _feel_ us getting closer and as long we were, I knew that he still felt that way and that he was... willing to wait."

"Kate, what is it exactly that you're waiting for? The stars to align?" Lanie's tone drops into honestly caring. "The guy is _nuts_ about you and you can talk all you want, but you are _just_ as nuts about him." Kate can feel her heartstrings tug. "But you can _not_ expect him to wait forever. Because, eventually, he'll move on and then what are you left with?"

It's only then that Kate can feel a tear slide down her cheek in a hot, painful streak.

"You need to go after him before it's too late, girl." She says and shifts her hips again. "And I'd do it sooner rather than later."

"No, Lanie, I can't. Gates is sending me upstate today. She wants me to search through the victim's home office before the local PD has a chance to contaminate the scene. I'm gonna be gone for two days."

"So? Take him with you." Lanie tells her, like it's as simple as that.

"Lanie, he's barely spoken to me in a week. You really expect him to just up and take off upstate with me on a case?"

"Did he really expect you to do all the things you've done with him when he's asked you? All the times he's asked you to dinner after a case, or out to a drink? Kate, the guy's been chasing after you for nearly four years. Don't you think it might be your turn?"

Trying to ignore the war going on between the fear her rational mind is giving her and the desperate longing her heart is giving her, she nods her head. "Alright, I'll ask him."

"Alright, good." Lanie says and turns, pounding her fist in the air as Kate turns to leave. "And tell him the truth or else!"

Kate stops with her hand holding the door open. "Or else _what?"_

"Or else you're gonna end up in one of these freezers."

Kate rolls her eyes and exits the morgue.

* * *

 _A/N: I wanted this chapter to be a bit longer, but that was the only place I could end it honestly. I'll get into the details of the case with the next chapter. And yes, I'll write this story in tandem with With Lying Eyes so those of you following that story (And those who aren't, please go read that one too) won't feel left out in the cold. Thanks always for all the ups and support in my writing! :)_


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I loved the response I got from the start of this story! For those of you reading With Lying Eyes, you know how fond I am of cliff hangers. But this one doesn't really have on, and if it is a cliff hanger, it's a soft one. Thanks for all the reviews and follows to this story. Keep them rolling in! :)_

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This was not supposed to happen.

He has the plot mapped out on his storyboard in his office, but he just can't figure out how to get there. The characters are so empty now. He usually knows them well enough to be able to form convincing dialogue in his head, easily allow the reader to paint a picture in their head. But now, it's like they've gone mute. Like they've stopped speaking to him. Like they've abandoned him altogether.

This wasn't supposed to happen when he made the decision that he owed it to himself to move on while he still has a chance.

But it has. It's come back to haunt him like an old war wound, giving him horrible flashbacks when he feels it open back up. He sits slouched down on the couch, his head laying back against the cushion of the couch to where he can just see the screen of the laptop sitting on his legs without having to use his neck muscles to look at that evil, blinking cursor taunt him as it marks the beginning of an empty page.

He never realized how hard it would be to go back to his old life.

But then again, what exactly _was_ his old life but two failed marriages followed by a string of hollow, nihilistic, nameless sexual encounters that delayed the process of him needing to grow up. Or at least that's how it looks when he reminisces on it now. She didn't really ask him to, but she forced him to grow up more than his prideful nature will allow him to admit. Even now, he feels he _should_ go and make the effort to put on some flashy clothes and meet some nameless, empty nobody who will make him feel good about himself again.

The way they all bat their eyelashes as he throws about his wealth like they're actually interested in something deeper like he fools himself into thinking they are when they offer themselves up to him. It feels nice in the moment, gives him a good ego boost while chipping away at his moral principles. Because if he's, for once, being honest with himself like he feels he should start being, it would be nice to be around someone who made him feel like he can be enough with such little effort.

Because he's never been enough for her. And it wasn't until just recently that he's started to realize that he never will be. That he can wait around until the cows come home for her to... he feels himself roll his eyes that his own weak pity just uttered the words 'lower her standards'. But it's beginning to feel like that's what's going to have to happen. And he can't live like that. He at least deserves to be with someone who will love him back.

But, no. If she doesn't want to be with him, then he's not going to go on another meaningless self-realization campaign to get her to see it. And she clearly doesn't want to be with him as it stands. So... for once, he owes it to himself, and maybe even to her, to move on. He deserves to at least be happy, and... well, she's deserved to be happy for a long time and he's probably been fooling himself into thinking that it was him who could make her happy and all he had to do was just wait for her to see it.

But he can't keep doing that. If he has to wait this long for her just to be ready to even start a relationship with him, how long will he have to wait for her to be ready to get engaged, let alone married, or even start a family? In the annoying, buzzing words of his mother, they're not getting any younger.

And speak of the devil, his mother is just coming down the stairs. "Still sulking, dear?" She calls.

"Mm not sulking." He sulks, lazying himself into the couch with his blank page of a laptop still sitting in his lap.

"You are sulking, Richard." She calls from the kitchen, hearing her open up cupboards. "And you have _been_ sulking for a week now."

"Never said getting over someone was a painless process, Mother." He retorts, making an excuse for his lack of motivation.

"Oh, Richard." She says and he can practically see her wave her hand at him in a dismissive fashion, hearing her open the fridge. "We both know you're just saying that. You're not really planning to move on from her, are you?" Her question is a call-out.

She's been bugging him about this for a few days and he has to say the same thing every time.

"It's for the better, Mother." He says as his heart sends a dull ache through his tired, lazy muscles. "I may never find another woman like Beckett in my life, but I can't keep putting myself through hell just to get her to smile. I can't keep..." He says as the cushions beside him sink with his mother coming to sit down next to him, "I can't keep trying to convince myself that I'll be enough for her or that in some other parallel universe, she actually _wants_ to be with me and all I have to do is just wait until she's ready."

"Well..." Martha starts, hoping to pull her son out of this. "How do you know she's _not_ ready?"

His expressionless, armored face looks over to her with his head still leaning back into the back of the couch, "If she was ready, then I'd know."

Martha raises a brow, "How do you know if you haven't talked to her?"

"If she was ready, she'd talk to me."

"And would you answer her or send her to voicemail like you did yesterday?"

He hisses out a breath, squinting his eyes as he shakes his head. "That was different, Mother. She..." He starts, physically feeling his doubts get the better of him, "she just wanted me to bring her her coffee so she could focus on whatever case she picked up. Something tells me that's all I'll ever be to her anyway. Just a..." He says, rolling his eyes as his blood grows cold and lethargic. "Just a glorified errand boy making sure she can focus on her job."

"Oh, Richard, would you drop the self-pity, already? Alexis and I have grown quite sick of it."

"So have I, Mother." He says quietly, looking back over to her. "That's why I need to move on while I still can. I'm not waiting around for the day when she gets hit in the head hard enough to where she will finally see that I've been standing right in front of her all this time. Because I'm beginning to think that I've been lying to myself when I said that she wants to be happy. Maybe she just doesn't want that kind of... meaning in her life. And... I'm not going to give her something that she clearly doesn't want, so... I need to move on."

Fighting the severe urge she feels to roll her eyes and knock her son upside the head, she leans forward to capture his eyes. "You know, you _could_ always tell her how you feel."

"I tried that already, Mother."

"Yes, while she was lying on the ground with a bullet in her chest."

"Do you have _any_ idea how hard it was for me to say that, Mother?" He asks, lifting his head off the back of the couch, his brow knitting angrily as he sends a hard glare over to her. "You think I _wanted_ the first time I tell her I love her to be when she's lying on the ground, shaking in my arms with tears rolling down her face because she just got shot?"

"Well, then why _did_ you tell her?"

"Because she was dying! I can..." He says, his voice growing in both volume and emotion. "I can still see the moment when her eyes fade, just a second after I get the words out, like me telling her how I feel is a cue for her to give up fighting, when... when her head goes limp in my hand. So, yes, I felt that telling her I loved her at a _bad_ time would be a hell of a lot better than never having a time to tell her ever again."

"A time which..." His mother says, putting a hand on his leg, "she doesn't remember, need I remind you? So... you're right back where you started, kiddo."

He lets out a long sigh, "You know, when I went to the hospital the day she woke up, I was... I was almost relieved that she said she didn't remember. I can't imagine just how pathetic she would think I am if she _did_ remember. Just... having me desperately pour my heart out at the worst possible time in her life... when I _knew_ she didn't love me back, so... what was the point?" He says in a low voice as he sinks his head back into the cushion of the couch.

"Do you still feel that way now?"

He looks over to her with plainly sad eyes, "Which way?"

"That you still love her or that she doesn't love you back?"

"Yes, much to my chagrin, I still love her and if she loved me back, I'd know it."

"Which brings us back around to the point... how do you know if you haven't talked to her?"

He looks up to the ceiling, being fed up with this conversation. "Are we going to spend all day talking in circles or can I get back to work here?"

Martha's eyes slowly move over to his laptop, smirking to herself as she looks at the blank page. "It looks to me like you've yet to start, kiddo." She says and stands up.

"Yeah, go ahead. Nothing like a little dirt to rub in the wound."

Martha floats around to the back of the couch, leaning down and putting her hands on his shoulders. "If nothing else, Richard, at least talk to her."

"And say _what,_ exactly?"

"Richard, don't just walk away without telling her that you're walking away. Beckett doesn't really deserve that, now does she?" She says and moves back into the kitchen.

He lets out a heavy sigh and slouches himself back down into the couch. A few seconds pass before he sees his phone light up on the coffee table. He lazily nods his head off to the side and sees her picture, which sends a stab into his gut. It's easy to keep a promise when you're not tested on it. And keeping himself away from her is hard enough without having to be reminded of how breathtakingly beautiful she is.

And when the stab reaches his chest, he ices his heart over and nods his head back to where the screen of his laptop is hiding the view of his phone.

* * *

 _"You've reached Richard Castle. Lucky you! Leave a mess-"_

She had prepared her voice to leave a message for him but decided against it. Her eyes burn again as she lets her phone fall down to her lap, holding it in her hand with a weak, shaky grip.

She's losing him.

Out of all the people in her life, she never thought it would be him that she would lose first. She looks out her window and lowers her head to look up, seeing a shadow move from side to side through the window of the loft. _The guy's_ _been chasing after you for nearly four years. Don't you think it's your turn?_

Lanie's words are almost physically pushing her out the door. But her fear, her insecurities, her vulnerability, the all too real possibility that she'll completely embarrass herself by going up there... it's then that something clicks inside of her brain.

 _Is this what he's felt like?_

All these years, he's been going after her in spite of all those things he must have felt telling him not to, like what's telling her the same thing now. But he did it anyway... and looking back on it, she can only see herself shooting him down. She owes it to him to feel like this, maybe. And she owes it to him to push passed it and trudge ahead anyway.

When the shadow moves from the left, over to the right, staying still for a moment before continuing off to the right, she yanks on the handle to her door and jumps out of her car.


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: Hope I captured the tone I was going for okay here. I originally was going to take this story in a direction, but when I ran it all the way through in my head, I decided it would be way to OOC to go with what I had planned. So I'm going to take it in a different direction, but I'll let you know when that part of the story comes. The next few chapters are going to be as planned._

Thanks always for all the ups and support. You guys rock! :)

* * *

She feels sick almost.

Like her body is preparing itself to cope with feeling terrible. She's never felt this fearful and nervous standing in front of his door before. She's never had the fear of rejection consume her with absolute dread before, standing in front of his door. He's always been so warm and gracious with her. But he's the kind of welcoming man that would welcome any visitor with open arms, that's just the kind of heart he has.

She can't help but feel a mixture of bitter disappointment and warm, heartfelt affection at the thought. The thought that he's always welcomed her into his home with a bright smile that's so full of delight and wonderment, but also that it's nothing special for her since he's the kind of person that does it for everyone. But now, she doesn't know if she'll be welcomed with the same warmth as she always has been when she knocks on his door. He didn't answer his phone and he's obviously home to hear it, so it's not like he's busy or in a meeting with someone.

Where else would he be, anyway, if not the precinct?

She rolls her eyes, sucking on her teeth, knowing that she's just trying to organize her thoughts as a means of stalling. She raises her hand and knocks on the door four, nervous times, not entirely confident that she knocked hard enough for him to hear it through the spacious loft.

But inside the loft, Castle sits on the couch, now leaned forward, sitting on the edge of the cushion with the laptop sitting on the coffee table, the page still menacingly blank, having just slammed the spacebar with his middle finger in angry frustration that it's still empty when he hears the knock on the door. Letting out a long sigh through his nose, he stands and moves to answer it as his mother still flits around the kitchen.

And outside in the hallway, Beckett stands with her clammy hands wringing together in front of her as her stomach turns to a pretzel. Her nerves send a slight shock through her, making her jump in surprise when the door opens. Her eyes widely pop open as it swings open and before she knows it, she feels a smile break her face in two at the sight of him, feeling a strange sense of relaxation and swarming butterflies that's become all too familiar over the past few months.

Her voice feels too tight to speak normally, but she tries anyway. "Hey."

On the other side of the doorway, Castle blinks before he consciously chills the intense warmth he felt when she smiled just now. A quick synapse fires a thought through his brain, _she called from downstairs._ "Beckett." He says after a long, silent moment, surprising even himself at the light, casual lift his voice sent her way.

Her heart squeezes and expands at once as his low, timbering voice rings in her ears. Her smile lowers as her nervousness overtakes her, part of her not wanting to embarrass herself by letting him know just how elated she is to see him again, her eyes looking down to the part of the hardwood floor where it abruptly changes color where his loft begins. But only for a second before she's looking over at him underneath her lashes.

She swallows passed the twisted knot in her throat and swivels herself before continuing. "I-I tried to call you, but..." She hesitantly starts, looking up to his eyes to gauge his unreadable expression, "I guess you couldn't hear it." She says, her mind going to the most positive scenario. She can't think the thought that he just ignored her call and mindfully brushed her off like she was nothing.

Not wanting to be insulting, the stubborn part of him that's still begrudgingly in love with her betraying him, and still... he can't not be a gentleman, especially with her. "Yeah, I uh..." He says, shifting his weight, "I get kind of entranced when I'm writing."

A slight shot of relief shoots into her muscles at his admission, but she just nods slowly, looking down to the floor again. He's always offered her in, always invited her into his home and she feels almost heartbroken that he's not making a move to do so now. A tense silence falls over them as the same fear of rejection that sent a cold sweat over her as she knocked comes back as the words form on her tongue. "Can I come in?"

Castle had fought with himself about inviting her in. Being around her when he's made a half-hearted effort, but an effort nonetheless, to get passed her while he still can, isn't going to be productive in his pursuit. But now that she's asked, he can't muster up enough of a hard-headed jerk to say no, least of all to her. He gives her a slight smirk and steps off to the side.

She feels her body tighten as she passes by him and into his space, both making her panic and feel excited at the same time.

Castle is closing the door behind her as they're interrupted by his mother, naively coming into the foyer. "Who is it, Rich... Beckett." Martha says with a smile, quickly making her way toward the woman with an open smile and open arms.

Beckett feels herself smile an honest smile at the woman's welcoming her, feeling just briefly that she's actually wanted here by someone as Martha wraps her arms around her. "Hi Martha." She says in a light voice.

"Oh," She says, shaking her from side to side. Martha's eyes open to look at her son as she hugs his partner, widening them in a silent gesture before rolling them over toward the woman she's hugging.

Castle just clicks his jaw, gnashes his teeth and hardens his eyes at his mother.

After squeezing Beckett's shoulders as hard as she can, she puts her hands on the woman's shoulders and smiles warmly at her. And it's here that Castle's heart goes into his throat because he just knows that she's going to say something that's going to embarrassingly elude to his recent, mopey, depressing behavior.

"It's so good to see you again, darling." She says simply.

Beckett smiles honestly, reminding herself that he's not only a very loving man but has a very loving family. "Thank you, Martha."

Martha looks over Beckett's shoulder and raises her brow toward her son, who just let out a long, silent breath of relief, and turns to go upstairs. Castle waits until she's out of sight to put his mind back on her. He takes a step back toward the couch, seeing Beckett quickly turn around when she hears him move. "So, uh..." He starts, lifting his hand, "how've you been?"

She inwardly groans, knowing they're about to fall into a slow process of awkward small talk. "Well, aside from having to make my own coffee, I've been alright, I guess."

Castle just smirks heavily as he cranes his neck and lets out a small breath, resembling a chuckle. That's the only place he ever had in her life, just the coffee jerk.

"I ended up drinking a straight shot of espresso a few days ago." She admits when he doesn't make a move to rib her about his daily gesture of a cup of coffee. He finds her eyes after a moment, and she's acutely aware of just how dully he's looking at her, even as he smirks. Something in his eyes has changed. "I know you showed me how, but..."

He shrugs his shoulders before taking another step toward the couch where he has his laptop open.

And her eyes quickly move down to the screen, seeing the page blank, void of words. She knew him saying he needed to focus on writing was just an excuse to keep himself away from her. "Unless you're looking for a quick way to put hair on your chest, I'd advise against doing that again." He jokes, not really feeling the humor.

She lets out a small giggle at his joke. She feels the words falling out of her mouth before she can stop them, her defenses lowered. "Having a scar on my chest is embarrassing enough, I don't really need to add hair to the mix."

Castle feels his throat tighten, the reality of her being shot coming crashing down into the awkward air between them. It's easy to pretend like it never happened when they're together, trading quips back and forth as they are. But the fact that she has a scar left over from it, the fact that she has a piece of that horrible day forever scarring what is sure to be an absolutely perfect body... why is he still thinking about this? He's supposed to be moving passed this.

"Listen, Beckett," He starts, turning toward her and seeing her looking over at him with small, puckered lips and a raised brow, "far be it from me to sound ungentlemanly, but Gina's been on my back for a manuscript, so if you're just here to chat then... I'd..." He says, sounding cold but wanting to just get back to moving on and getting away from this endless riptide of waring emotions she puts him through.

Her eyes look down to his laptop and sees the still blank page, motioning toward the device and the evidence of his trying to just toss her out without saying the real words. She can feel a deep twinge in her heart at the thought that he doesn't want her here, that he doesn't want to be around her anymore, that she can't be as interesting or intriguing to him as she used to be to keep him wanting her. "I think you can spare a few minutes, Castle."

When he sees her eyes looking at the blank page that's been taunting him for days, he quickly leans down and pushes his laptop closed. He stands back up with a hard sigh, before looking over at her again with a very heavy smirk. He lifts his hand up to the kitchen. "Then can I get you something to drink?"

She hates that this is them now. That they're this cold. She misses the days when all it would take for her to be taken away was just a passing glance at each other. As she lifts a hand and shakes her head, denying his half-hearted gesture, she tries to let his obvious distance urge her to keep going, to keep pushing for him, to fix them.

He's at the fridge, pulling out a container of lemonade by the time he finds it in himself to at least talk to her. "So, what brings you by? I thought you had a case."

She nods silently as he turns away towards the cupboards. "Yeah, I did. I _do."_ She corrects herself. "It's actually taking me out of town for a few days."

He turns back to her with a slightly raised brow, his features seeming more relaxed as he pours a glass half full on the counter. "Really? That's odd."

She nods again, her hands grabbing hold of the counter to steady herself as her body prepares itself to get shot down. "Yeah, the victim had a home office where she kept some of her work. The worst the local PD see up there are... domestic disturbances, so Gates is sending me up there to make sure they don't contaminate the scene. She's sending me up there for two days to help coordinate things."

All he answers her with is a silent nod, taking a small, uninterested sip of his lemonade.

But she can't help but watch him very intently, the way his bicep curls underneath the thin, black sweater he's wearing, the way his Adam's apple moves as he drinks, the way his jawline seems to flex underneath a day or two of scruff. Once she sees him start to drop his glass, she shakes her head and looks away.

It's then that she just decides to spit the words out. "You know, I could be back by tonight if I had my partner with me."

He just chuckles despite himself and slowly nods his head, looking up at her after a moment. "Well, you were a detective long before I came around. You can probably handle this one on your own, right?" He says in what sounds to him like a casual tone as he moves around the island and back towards the couch. "You can probably even get the job done faster without me getting in the way, anyway." He says with a smile as he moves back around to the couch but doesn't move to sit down.

She turns, her eyes following him with a furrowing brow. Is that what he really thinks? It could be something else inside of him talking, but... what made him say that? And more importantly, how does she tell him that he's dead wrong without pouring her entire heart out and embarrassing herself like she's never done before? She just decides to take a meandering step forward, "Oh, come on, Castle. Give yourself a _little_ credit."

He looks back up to her, his brow knitted together. He doesn't expect a compliment. She never was very quick with a compliment, at least not as quick as he is.

"There've been a lot of cases I couldn't have solved without your help, you know that."

He lets out a hard breath and feels his shoulders untense. "Well, what's the case?"

She smiles, taking it as an acceptance of her offer and as a sign of hope. "Well, why don't I explain on the way."

But it's all pulled out of her when he shakes his head and waves his hand back toward his laptop. "Beckett, I really have to get back to it, so if it's not all that important, then maybe you should-"

"Claire Daniels." She cuts him off, feeling small when she realizes he's moving to throw her out the door, but wanting desperately to stay, if nothing else to just be around him, even if it is awkward and tense.

But when the name reaches his ears, his expression screws together. " _The_ Claire Daniels?"

His tone shifting, her heart sending a clammy shot of relief that he's not throwing her out anymore, she lets out a breath. "Yeah, she's an investigative reporter, you... you know her?"

He lets out a long sigh as he puts a hand on his hip and puts one hand against his jaw. "Yeah, I uh... I worked with her about eight years ago when I was still writing Derrick Storm. She broke a story about a high-profile business owner bribing city officials to look the other way with some inspections. It made her career."

Beckett nods, "Yeah, she's broke a lot more stories since then and she's gotten a lot of threats. Ryan and Espo are still running down all of them while Gates sends me to her office upstate to try and get a solid lead."

Castle looks away, slowly nodding his head as he feels himself pulled down. Claire seemed like a good person when he met her. And... if he's going to do this and really say goodbye, he should at least do it right, with some semblance of honor. He knows what it's like for someone to just leave without saying goodbye, without giving a real reason as to why they're leaving. Kyra doing that to him is how he ended up with Meredith.

"I was on my way out of town when I thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing." She interrupts his thoughts.

He looks up to her again with a raised brow, being caught off guard by her soft voice.

"I-I haven't seen you in a while and I... just... wanted to make sure you were feeling okay." She minces words.

Feeling a tightness in his chest, he nods in a small gesture, lowering his brow. "Yeah, I'm fine, just uh... would be nice to get Patterson off my back about the whole 'one book a year' thing, is all."

She chuckles with a small smile. Which he catches sight of. "Well, I had planned on being away for a couple days, but... if I have my partner with me, I could be back by late tonight." She says in an overly hopeful voice, her body feeling tense and anxious as she awaits his response with both dread and hope. When he looks away and lets out a small breath, she continues. "I'll even buy you dinner on the way back."

He looks up to her, brow still knitted together, his expression contemplating. "Do I get to pick for once?"

It's then that a smile breaks apart over her face, trying to hide it beneath the veil of her hair as it falls in front of her face when she cranes her neck. She tosses her hair behind her shoulder as she looks back up at him. "Sure."


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: Not taking too long of a sabbatical from With Lying Eyes, just a short break as I fill out the story map a bit. Need to fill in some of the blanks with some lighter, softer, fluffy scenes before diving into intense stuff (for those of you following that)._

As for this, I'll start getting into the rising actions with the next chapter. Keep reading and reviewing. :)

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They're out of the city by the time Castle musters up enough self-restraint to trust himself conversing with her without it turning into playful, back-and-forth, witty banter as it often does. Now they're just headed up the highway, just after one in the afternoon, and he's been training himself for the past hour as they worked their way outside the city. Training himself to smell her perfume and not have his muscles ache at the desire to lean in and take a deeper whiff, to catch side glances at her face and not feel a small flutter in his stomach, to hear her voice as she curses careless drivers and not feel pulled in by how soft it can be.

And now that he feels he's ready, he turns to her. "So, how'd Claire die?" He asks, looking over and very consciously sends a chill through his veins.

Kate, who's been looking over at him every few minutes to check if his stoic posture and thousand-yard stare have moved away from looking out the window, looks over with a smile, even as she feels her heart pull at how cold he seems. "The case file is on the back seat."

Castle lets out a small breath and reaches back through the space in the center console, brings the file to his lap and opens to the first photo.

"She was found in an apartment she was subletting."

Castle looks at the first photo of Claire's face, eyes closed as she lay splayed out in the center of the couch, her skin looking cold and pale. She has a small hole in her right temple, indicating a gunshot wound to the head. At first glance, he pegs it as a suicide. He lets the theory swirl in his mind as he flips to the next photo.

"Neighbors reported the gunshot and when uni's went to answer the call, they found her body and called it in."

"At first glance, it looks like a suicide." He says, not committing to the theory as his eyes scan the next photo.

"That's what Lanie said it was when she gave me the preliminary. But, at first, I wasn't convinced."

Castle looks over to her, his brow pushed together, curious about her theory. When they're doing case work together, going over details, trading theories, going over a victim's life and subsequent death, it's easy to let all their feelings and emotions for one another fall away. Their minds get consumed and thrown into work, and it usually isn't until it's all over and the dust settles that they usually find themselves too close for comfort and back away awkwardly. But as for right now, the case is making everything between them seem unimportant.

And to Castle, it is. "Why's that?"

"Well, when women commit suicide, they usually do things like slit their wrists or swallow pills. They're not very likely to shoot themselves like Claire Daniels did. But when Lanie said that she could smell alcohol on the victim, I started to think that she may actually have commit suicide."

Before he asked, he did notice something that caught his attention in the photo he's been staring at. And a sense of pride starts to lift his spirit at the thought that she probably couldn't have noticed this. "Well, this stain on her left hand?"

But Beckett nods widely, beating him to it. "That's what convinced me it was murder." He feels a sense of heavy letdown hit his shoulders and put a rock in his stomach. She clearly noticed the stain on the victim's left hand, same as he did, and figured out that it couldn't have been suicide. "Left-handed people often have stains on their hands from writing, and if she was left-handed, she wouldn't have shot herself with her right hand."

All Castle can do in response is flip the file closed and stare blankly out the window, even as he hears Beckett's confident voice is continuing to explain. She clearly doesn't need him here. She can do this on her own, just like he knew she could whenever she roped him into this.

"The statistics were a start, but the ink stain on her hand convinced me that it was murder. Lanie said that the victim's blood alcohol content was only half the legal limit."

Castle's voice is low, overly steady, and even sounding uninterested when he asks, "So, what do you think happened?"

She chances a glance over at him and sees he's looked back out the window. She had thought that her finding the ink stain on the victim's hand and realizing that it wasn't suicide would have impressed him, given him something to be interested in her for again, at least given her one of his smirks. He's always been quick to compliment her for her brains when she finds things like this. But now, he just seems so... distant and blocked off. And it's making her frightened to even start speaking again, like somehow he's on the verge of yelling at the top of his lungs at her.

But she swallows thickly and focuses back to the road with a brow of feigned concentration. "Well, I think someone might have been holding a grudge over a story she investigated and come after her." She says in a lighter, more theory-seeking tone. And as she chances a glance back in his direction, he's still staring stoically out the window. And she feels a bit of vulnerable honesty beat itself out of her heart. "But... you've always been better at finding the story than I was."

Her statement catches him slightly off his newly formed guard. She's never been quick with a compliment, if he can remember her giving him one at all. He's never been that needy and desperate for attention when it comes to her, has always just been content taking what little she's always been hesitant to offer him. But it's caught up with him after this long, has become harder to swallow it all and think that somewhere in the back of her mind, she might be thinking about the things she admires in him. If any of those things besides him knowing how she takes her coffee even exist to her.

So, he decides to take it with a grain of salt. "Well, I specialize in fiction, so your theory probably makes the most sense."

And with that, she knows he's tossing off her honest compliment like it didn't even reach this new thick hyde of his. All she can do is tighten her grip on her steering wheel, feeling her sweaty palms slide uncomfortably against the black plastic. They're still three hours outside of where Claire's office is. She knew she was telling a bold-faced lie when she told him he could be back by late tonight. They're going to get there by four at the earliest, and even then, it's going to take them a few hours to sift through everything to find some sort of connection. Castle may be a speed reader, but he's not that fast.

And unlike her, he didn't pack a bag, because her's is sitting in the trunk.

After another silent few minutes spent hoping on what feels like hanging by a flimsy tree branch, she tightens her chest and decides to just try and get things back to normal between them, when they'd let their talk about a case slowly devolve into normal conversation. "You know, I'd take this road on my bike sometimes."

Inwardly, Castle rolls his eyes, not really in the mood to talk after realizing she didn't need his help and just wanted him to tag along, still not searching for him to honestly help her. He doesn't feel right engaging in small talk. But... he doesn't have it in him to be that much of an asshole. "Really?" He asks coldly.

"Yeah, I took it sometimes with Josh." Her throat closes and she wishes she could reach into the air and pull those words back.

Castle's jaw tenses with grinding teeth. He tells himself that he shouldn't care, but the fact that she still thinks about that... well, he could come up with a thousand and one things to call Josh in his head, but decides not to devote any mental capacity to it. But it still sends a twinge of stabbing, firey jealousy, painting his blood dark green with angry envy. Josh didn't even have to try to get her in his arms. He probably just flexed his stupid muscles underneath that stupid leather jacket of his and she swooned and like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Even though he's been banging his head against that ridiculous "wall" she told him about that day on the swings, so much so and for so long that now it's physically making his headache.

And she knows he's shoring up his armor at the sound of the small sigh he just let out through his flaring nostrils. "But he never could keep up." She says in a joking tone.

A chuckle pushes its way up his throat before he can swallow it, and a smile is curling at one side of his mouth. "Oh, yeah?" He says, looking over to her with a smirk.

And when she catches sight of it briefly before turning back to the road, she flashes him a smile, her heart telling her that she's being allowed briefly behind this barricade he's putting up. "Yeah, he was kind of a pansy."

"Probably couldn't even get it into fourth gear." He mutters under his breath.

But something hits Beckett's mind as he says that, sending a hard slap of intense curiosity. "Castle, you-" She starts, whipping her head over to him, catching sight of his cocky grin, "do you know how to ride?"

Castle looks over to her with a cocked brow and a frown. "Yeah, why?" He says, somewhat indifferently.

All the air is pulled out of her lungs when he says that, as if it's nothing. "Castle!" She exclaims, her heart being pulled. "You never told me that." She says, as if he's in trouble.

All Castle does is shrug his shoulders and push out his bottom lip slightly, as if he just didn't think to tell her.

"Wha..." She stammers, looking back toward the road to make sure she's not going into the opposite lane, "when did you learn?" She starts to ask, a million more questions raging in her head. "Why didn't you tell me, Castle?" She asks quickly after.

"Beckett, I'm a millionaire man-child who has nothing better to do with his money. Of _course,_ I know how to ride a motorcycle."

"Wh-wha... i-it..." She stumbles again, a monkey wrench clanking inside of her brain. "When did you learn?" She asks again.

"Right as I got the first check from In a Hail of Bullets. It was part of my... 'oh my god, I'm rich' blowout when I went on a buying spree of things I've always wanted."

"Why didn't you tell me, Castle? We could have ridden together!"

"Because one, I got rid of my bike right as Meredith got pregnant with Alexis, and two, because you never really asked."

"Well-it..." She struggles to form her sentences. She pushes out a hard breath, her mind still whirling. Until after a few moments when she feels the thick silence start to press its weight back onto them, she breaks. "Why'd you get rid of your bike?"

"A motorcycle in the New York City? I never even got it out of second gear 90% of the time. It seemed like a waste to just have it sit in the parking garage."

"What kind of bike was it?"

Castle looks over to her with a raised brow still slightly furrowing with a bit of indifference. "1990 Honda Shadow 1100."

Beckett feels a smile form on her agape mouth as her jaw slacks. She finally feels it in herself to close her mouth but doesn't feel able to stop smiling. "Not a Harley kind of guy, then?"

"Too generic." He says with pursed lips.

She chuckles slightly and shakes her head. "You know that _I_ ride a Harley, right?"

Castle raises his brow as he looks over to her, "Yeah, you ride a little _girly_ bike."

Her mouth falls open as her brow knits together again, her lips still being pulled into a smile. " _Girly_ bike?"

"I'm surprised it doesn't have a little basket on it." He jokes, not knowing how he got into this conversation, or how he let himself be lured into this false sense of security with her. "But I'm not blaming you. I mean, you _are_ a girl, after all."

"Well," She says, shrugging her shoulders, her chest feeling pried open again because she knows she's going to be putting way too much on the line. "Why don't you get another one? See if you could keep up?"

Castle simply shrugs his shoulders. "Not really my thing anymore." He says, looking back out his window.

The tight knot in her stomach is telling her not to continue, but her heart won't let her just keep this stoic chill going. He didn't do it with her, she won't do it with him either. "What, you scared?" She teases.

Not really feeling insulted, nor all that impatient since she didn't really call him a hair-brained, self-centered, childish idiot like she normally does, he looks over to her. "I'd leave you coughing up my dust."

"Oh, really?" She challenges him with a cocky brow and a smirk.

"I'll admit, I have seen pictures of the new Victory V-twin." He thinks out loud as he turns back out the window.

She can feel her heart swell as her smile grows. If this is what he felt like whenever he realized he'd snuck behind that wall she told him about like he has so many times before, it's an odd yet good feeling. A weird feeling of humbling pride. After the silence befalls them again, she looks over to him and sees that he, at least, seems softer now. More... welcoming. Not as shut off, maybe.

It could be just him thinking of something else, something in his past when he was a young writer.

But it would be too easy to explain it away. And right now, she decides not to... since he's not the type to just explain those things away. He clearly saw them.

Now she needs to start seeing them too.

* * *

 _A/N: I've always found it weird that Castle didn't at least know how to ride a motorcycle. He may not ride one anymore, but I think that he'd at least know how. Probably just me though. :) _


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: Had to wait exactly 24 hours to post this. Finished it this morning and it's been bugging me not posting it. Glad I can. You're probably going to hate me for the ending of this chapter. Let me know if I'm being too harsh. I told you I'd start getting into the plot and rising actions with this chapter. :)_

* * *

Castle and Beckett fall into another silence as they continue down the two-lane highway northbound. It's getting near 2:30, and they're just nearing three-quarters of the way there. If she adjusts the cruise control just a bit more, they might make it in time to actually get the work done on the case, and maybe at least make a midnight drive home back to the city.

But she's starting to get hungry and drained of energy. This tense dance, so scared of stepping on his toes and keeping her dignity intact, it's draining her quicker than she ever anticipated. She's never had to do this dance before with someone. There was never that back and forth like there is with Castle. She's starting to feel a twinge in her heart. She's recalled his words before, they've had more of an impact on her life than he's even aware of, but those words from that night in her apartment...

 _So you hide. Just like you hide in these nowhere relationships with men... you don't love._

No one's ever been that harsh and direct with her. And even they've always spoken in subtext, never putting themselves in direct context. But when she was so impatient that she didn't want to deal in subtext... he let her have it. Admitting he was right is hard for her. It still is. She's not built to admit she makes mistakes, let alone fix them. She has to be prideful and unwavering in her decisions because of her career. She can't afford to second-guess herself. And no one's ever really forced her to. She's been sure of herself for so long that she started reacting in ways she couldn't stop when he came along and started being a better detective than she was with so little effort.

She's supposed to be the professional, she's supposed to be the best. But sometimes, he comes in and offhandedly tosses out something or connects two mismatching puzzle pieces that she wasn't even looking at, and she's left feeling weak because it wasn't her who found it. So she ends up pushing herself harder and him away in the process. Or at least she was. And now that she's been so wrapped up healing herself to realize that she stopped pushing, she has to learn how to pull. How to chase. And it's harder than she thought. She's second-guessing herself so much with him now that just coming out and saying everything seems like it's a physical impossibility.

She's never been this self-reflective, this introspective before. And when she hears the loud silence between them, she looks over and sees him, staring stoically out the window as the trees pass along the side of the road. She feels a deep pang of hopelessness hit her right in the gut. She never understood the saying 'alone but not by yourself' until now, or 'not knowing what you have until it's gone' until now. She's pushed him away before, she's all too mindful of that, but... the only other time he just up and left is when he left two summers ago.

And she can't compare then to what's happening between them now. More a lot of reasons, but mainly because he said he'd be back. Now, if he leaves, he might not ever come back.

And even now that he 'came back', and is, at least, seemingly willing to work this case with her, it still seems like he's back in the city, not here with her. When she focuses back on the road, she shakes her head with a small, bitter, breathless chuckle. Now, it's him who's doing the pushing and she can barely stand to still be around him. He must have a strength she wasn't aware of if he can deal with all this all the time.

"So, um..." She hesitantly breaks the silence, shooting a quick look over to him as she rounds a small bend in the road, "you getting hungry?" She asks, even as he barely flinches at the sound of her voice.

His broad shoulders shrug underneath the tan suede jacket he's wearing. "Not really."

And as if serendipity couldn't smile upon her at a more opportune time, she hears his stomach let out a small grumble. She feels herself fighting a smile as she looks down then back up to him.

He looks down to his stomach. "Quiet." He whispers to his protesting bowels.

Her smile explodes at his humor as she looks back up the road. "Well, I didn't get a chance to eat anything before I left the precinct, so... you wanna stop somewhere?" She asks, forcing as much unconfident casualness into her voice as she can muster.

He pushes out a small breath and looks down the road just as they start entering into a small town that the highway cuts through. "I guess." He says, just wanting to go home at this point. As always, he's probably going to end up paying for this one too. Really, he wishes he wasn't in a relationship where he wasn't just a walking ATM. The last relationship where that wasn't the case was Kyra. And that's only because he hadn't invented Derrick Storm and wasn't into his wealth yet. If he was, her parents might not have questioned him as much as they did.

But after that, he was content with it after Derrick Storm took off and he started seeing more and more commas in his bank account. But after Gina practically robbed him in their divorce settlement, he quickly got turned off by the whole concept and just decided to use his wealth as a bargaining chip to fall into relationships instead of his actual wealth itself. It's his own damn fault with her and he knows it. When he realized that she'd gotten him passed his writer's block after killing off his money maker and decided to just let her inspire him, he fell into his old ways.

And it's more so his fault for being a gentleman, because he's well aware that she's never been as impressed by his wealth as the ordinary woman would be. After all, he knows she grew up in an upper-middle income household with two lawyer parents. Who's he kidding, she's never been impressed with him. He's been trying for years and she's yet to even raise a brow at him.

"Umm..." Beckett hums as she slows down and searches the passing buildings. "Here's a place, we can probably get something for the road."

She turns her Crown Vic into the parking lot and parks off to the side. They both stand up out of the car, with Castle feeling a mist hit his face from the gray sky above. Castle begrudgingly falls into step with her as they make for the door of the burger place, reaching ahead of her to pull open the door. And as always, she just steps passed him as he holds it open and lets her pass in front of him. He could live without it, and he's not entirely sure he'd accept it if she offered one, but a 'thank you' wouldn't hurt.

The restaurant looks popular, more decorated and stylish than an average, roadside burger stand. Kate steps up to the hostess as Castle meanders forward. "Hi, can we place a to-go order?"

The hostess smiles and hands them a menu. Beckett takes the menu and steps up to the bar that makes for the center of the restaurant and flips it open. And when Castle comes up next to her and leans against the bar, leaning forward, she's very acutely aware of his presence and the slight hint of pleasure his cologne is giving her senses. She looks over at him and smiles as she pushes the menu in between them so they can both read it. After a minute of deciding, Castle gives her his order and she goes back to the hostess.

Castle spins around and leans back against the bar with his arms, looking down the rows of booths. Beckett comes to stand next to him after he gave her his order to give to the hostess. "So, it's just gonna be about ten minutes." She tells him and then sees him lean off to the side to reach for his wallet. She's quick to wave him off. "No, Castle, I got it. The precinct gives me a budget when I go out of town on a case."

Castle leans back, "So, I _am_ paying for it?"

She chuckles as she shifts her weight, standing to face the bar beside him. "What do you mean?"

"After all the money I've donated to the Twelfth? I'm surprised you guys haven't _named_ it after me yet."

"Yeah, 'cause Richard Castle's Twelfth Precinct of the NYPD rolls off the tongue so well." She cracks sarcastically.

Castle doesn't move to continue their lighthearted banter any further as he lets out another sigh, as if cutting off the conversation with his breath and looks away from her with a lowered brow of concentration and a frown to match it. Before this new attitude he's shoving her way, he would have been so quick and eager to toss out another quip.

"I'm... just..." She hesitantly pushes her words out, "gonna go use the restroom real quick." She says in a small voice and quickly darts toward the back of the restaurant, following the signs for the bathroom.

Meanwhile, Castle sighs, finally feeling able to relax as he feels he doesn't have to change his usual mannerisms as much, doesn't have to run his words over in his head and test them on his tongue before he says them to make sure they show the right uninterested inflection. It's easy now, feels good to be the distant one for a change. But he noticed the man sitting in the booth a ways down the aisle staring greedily at her. And Castle just pushed out a cold breath of frustration, as if a challenging snort from an angry bull, while the tall, slender, dark sports coat wearing man with a coif in his hair comes up just as he finished the conversation with whomever it was he was talking to.

Castle shakes his head as he looks out the front doors of the restaurant, seeing the man stop beside him. "The girl that was just here." He says. And Castle looks over to him with an uninterested stare. "Where'd she go?"

They usually don't find themselves in places where this is likely to happen, and when they do, it's usually on business so her mind is on other things and she's her usual impatient and snappy self, or it happens on purpose because she's undercover. But now, she's being hit on under what might as well be normal circumstances. And he can't help but dig into his mind and pull out the only weapon he has to compete with guys like this.

Rapier Wit.

"Somewhere you're not allowed to."

The man in front of him, looking younger than he is, maybe mid-thirties sends him a chuckle as he turns toward Castle. "Is she your girlfriend?"

There was a time in his life where this was him, hitting on attractive women he didn't even know as if it was nothing, even if they were with another guy. And if this guy had asked him that last week, he would have said yes just to get him to go away. He briefly thinks of telling him 'yes' to do just that but decides against it. "No, I'm her partner. She's a homicide detective." He says in a low voice.

"That's so hot." He says as he shakes his head. "Girl like that, a cop? Wow."

Castle just slowly nods his head, raising his brow a bit in feigned agreement.

"Is she available?"

"In the bathroom? I think she might be a bit preoccupied at the moment."

Then, the man in front of him smirks cockily and puts one hand in his pocket. "Do you know who I am?" He says smuggly, as if his picture should be on the wall or something.

"Why, you don't know who you are?" Castle hears the person manning the bar let out a small chuckle behind him, "I'm pretty good at twenty questions if you want to play." He says and cocks his head off to the side.

The man just lets out a scoff and reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out a business card. "Just give her this and tell her to call me. I'd love to get to know her."

When Castle takes the card in his fingers, he motions toward him with it. "You know, I don't think I ever saw the words 'get to know' under the words 'have sex with' in the thesaurus. Because that's a really funny way of putting it." He says with a slight smirk.

The man leans forward, accepting Castle's challenge and flicks the edge of the card in his hands. "Just tell her, okay?"

"You can go ahead and hold your breath, guy." Castle nods with a small, sarcastic smile just as the man is spinning around on his heel and marching out the door.

Letting out a small sigh, feeling defeated, he looks down at the business card, the letters inlaid with gold with his phone number. He's obviously a business owner and clearly thinks his reputation is that of being well-known enough to get recognized. Just the man she would go for. Meaningless, the personality of an empty pizza box, someone she could just be her normal, closed off, emotionally withdrawn self without the worry of having him poke and prod her for more, and just be there for physical satisfaction with little else to worry about. He knows that she could climb her way up the social ladder all the way to royalty if she wanted. She just has that kind of grace. So, why would he ever think that she would just settle for him?

As he spins back around to the bar, he thinks of crumpling up the card in his hand and tossing it to the floor. But he simply decides to look up to the man behind the bar. "Can I get a beer?"

* * *

Beckett pushes open the swinging door to the bathroom and is heading toward one of the open stall doors when she hears two others enter in behind her just as she's closing the door behind her.

"Did you see that guy at the bar?" One of the women asks the other.

Beckett's heart goes into her throat as her blood sends a cold shot of nerves jittering across her skin. "Yeah, he's _cute._ " The other answers in a swooning voice.

She rolls her eyes as she feels a deep, very deep pang of cold, bitter tasting jealousy hit her with a thud in her heart. Yes, he's cute. She knows that. He's always dressed very nicely, especially today in that dark tan, suede jacket with a pale blue button-up shirt and dark denim jeans. He even has that scruff he had whenever they first started working together. She never felt the need to compliment him on it, never wanting to overinflate his ego, or just didn't have it in her. But hearing other women swoon and gape over him is sending her on a surreal trip of emotions she's never felt.

"I think that's Richard Castle." Beckett's attention is caught at that as the first woman starts speaking again.

" _The_ Richard Castle?" Beckett rolls her eyes again. Something about women wanting to throw themselves at him, all over his wealth and social standing is making her feel sick to her stomach.

"Yep, the White Whale, they call him back in Manhattan." Beckett slowly turns and leans against the wall of the stall for support. "You know, this year he got moved from New York's most eligible bachelor number nine to number seven?"

Beckett's heart closes at that. She never wanted to admit it to herself, but he could really have any woman he wanted. The fact that he's been waiting for her, that he's been hooked on her, that... that he was, at one point, in love with _her_ is sending a nauseous mixture of admiration and fear into her system. Women like that will never stop throwing themselves at him. All they see is the money and the looks. But she knows who he can be, who he is underneath all that. He's an amazing and very loving father, he's a dedicated and loyal friend when he wants to be, he's witty and far more charming than she will ever admit to him, he's so caring and even at times, absolutely fearless when it comes to being her partner.

And yes, he's also very, very ruggedly handsome.

Beckett waits until the women have left the bathroom to head back out to the restaurant, where she can see him leaned forward against the bar with his arms crossed in front of him, brooding with a deep crease in his forehead and a dark bottle of beer in one hand. She's nervous standing next to him after hearing those women fawn over him in the bathroom. "You're drinking already?"

"It's the only thing they'd give me." He says as he takes another long swig from the bottle.

She nods, the fact he feels he needs alcohol this soon into this trip not going over her head. She stands next to him a little closer than she was before she left, they're arms now brushing against each other. Her skin crawls with excitement at the contact, even underneath their jackets. It's another tense, silent moment before he's lifting his hand and handing her a small card in between his index and middle finger.

"What's this?" She asks as she takes the card from him and reads the name, the words going vacantly through her head.

"He said he wanted to get to know you. Seemed like a pretty well off business owner from what I could tell." He says coldly as she looks over to him, with his brow furrowing angrily, staring off into space in front of him. "Might be worth calling him." He says just before he down the rest of the beer with a long swig.

Her heart is given another deep pang at that. They'd made an agreement to wait until she was ready. It was a silent agreement albeit, veiled in a thick soup of minced words and subtext, but it was an agreement. Had he really thought that she wasn't holding up her end? That she would actually think about keeping this card, let alone be interested in whoever it was that gave it to him? He was waiting for her, did he really not believe that she would hold up her end of the bargain for the sake of them?

She looks back down to the card again, feeling as if its sharp edges are stabbing her in the heart. After another few seconds, she reaches over and takes the empty bottle from his hand, folds up the card with one hand and drops the card inside, placing it off to her side and leaning back down, their arms brushing against each other again. She looks over to him with a smile as he watches her movements with a curious look in his eye.

"I know what it means when a guy says he wants to get to know me, Castle." She says with a smirk.

Castle's expression doesn't shift as he responds, "You do know that _I_ said that when I first met you, right?"

She feels a smile tug at the corners of her lips, "Well..." She says and shrugs her shoulders looking him in the eye, "you were different."

His eyes seem to soften, almost start to twinkle again as he moves his head to look at her more straight. "Ma'am?"

They both turn at the sound of the hostess calling from behind them.

"Your order's ready." She says and extends a bag to them.

She smiles and takes the bag, looking over to her partner behind her shoulder, brightens her smile nervously and moves out the door, feeling him in close tow. They're heading through the parking lot when Beckett looks over to him with a soft smile, searching and admiring his features. "What?" He asks casually.

"You look nice today, Castle." She says with her heart stopping.

Castle feels a wash of feelings he wasn't prepared for pour over him. He simply decides to nod and look down to the ground. "Thanks, uh..." He says, feeling his conscience want to shove out more words. "So do you."

Once they get themselves situated tensely back in her Crown Vic, she starts down the road again. Castle starts eating meagerly and Beckett waits until she's able to get back in cruise control to start on hers. "Isn't that a little dangerous?" Castle asks her over a mouthful of food.

As she takes the first bite of her burger wrapped in tissue, she looks down the road as she chews. "I've done it before, Castle."

He swallows, "Yeah, I'm very aware of that. I still have nightmares."

She chuckles as she takes another bite, "Since when did you become so mother hen?" She asks as she briefly looks over to him.

He shakes his head and takes another large bite of his food.

"And besides, Castle," She starts again, pausing to swallow her food, "if you want to be back home by tonight," She says and looks over to him briefly, "then we need to get-"

" _Kate!"_

Her eyes fly back to the road and her hands tighten, dropping her food to the center console as she quickly swerves to avoid the deer on the road, her food slamming down as hard as she can down on the brake pedal, the car violently jerking off to the right. Her heart seizes and her entire body goes stiff as she sees the tree come straight at them.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: So, I had to trudge my way through this chapter. It's the end I was getting to, where I get to the actual prompt that sent me down this road, writing this story. Hope you like it! :)_

* * *

Her head feels swimming as she feels her body unfreeze. Her limbs feel jittery and vibrating. Her mind is lost, just a blank, thoughtless void as she tries to shift her weight in her seat. She lets out a breath that feels like it wants to pull itself back into her lungs and lifts her weightless head up, looking through the scattered cracks in the safety glass of the windshield. The first thing she sees is the crumpled hood of her car with smoke slowly rising from where it's pinned against the tree.

"Beckett?"

Her heart stops suddenly at the sound of his struggling voice. With the deflated airbags in their laps, she looks over and sees him. It only takes the sight of his head lethargically bob off to the side to rip her seatbelt off and go to open the door. When it doesn't open at the first shove, she slams against it with her shoulder, forcing it open with a grunt and falling to the ground. Her brain still scattered and spinning, she stumbles on the ground and moves around the back of the car, leaning against the edge for support as her numb, untrustworthy legs stagger over to the passenger side.

She grabs the handle and yanks the door open with another hard grunt, panting heavily. "Castle?" She asks with a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah." He says in a strained voice. He grimaces in pain as he slowly goes to unhook his seatbelt. Once it slackens, he begins to lean out. She reacts quickly by catching his broad shoulders in her arms.

"I got you."

"I'm fine." He protests, his voice still tight.

But now, her mind is finally beginning to come back to her. She has her arms around his shoulders now. They're so close to each other. Hell, their breathes are even tangling together in the air between them. Even now, as he puts one hand on the side of the car and the other on the top to push himself out, she can't find it in herself to let go of him. Her hands just slide down his chest, her palms pressing into him as he stands back up. "You okay?"

He can't think clearly. The only thing he knows is that neither of them is. If she's this close to him, one of them is probably dying. That's the only time she's ever been able to bear touching him anyway. "Yeah." He says as he looks over to the car's front end, the hood and grill completely decimated by the two-foot wide tree. "Yeah, I think I'm okay." He says and takes another long breath, the cool, misty air feeling great to his panicking lungs.

She feels her body relieve itself of all tension her muscles are holding in one long whoosh. Her hands slide down his chest until her fingers are teasing his stomach. "Okay..." She breathes, looking towards the damage. "Okay, we're okay." She says again, turning away with a hand on her waist, running the other through her hair.

"Are you hurt?" He asks, standing behind her. He's noticing the shift in her usual gait, she's leaning too much toward one side.

She turns and he's holding his right arm, rolling his shoulder back in pain. She smiles, the thought that he's asking because he cares for her getting blown way out of proportion in her scattered mind, and waves. "No, I'm fine." She takes another long, deep breath... until she looks back at her car. "But I am in _so_ much trouble."

* * *

It's an hour later and it's starting to sprinkle. It's just after four by the time the tow-truck has the chain hooked to the back axle and is starting to pry it off the tree.

There's a slow-moving line of traffic moving down the road in front of them, an ambulance sits parked on the shoulder, with it being Castle's turn to get checked out. Beckett is now on the phone with Gates, slowly pacing between the ambulance and the few other highway patrol cars parked to block off the lane, with one of them directing traffic. "No, sir, it wasn't Castle's fault."

" _I find that hard to believe, Detective."_

"No, sir, I was... going over the case with him and... got distracted. The deer must have jumped in front of us while I had my head turned and I jerked the car in the wrong direction."

Gates sighs a long sigh of frustration on the other end of the line, " _We're running out of time on this case, Detective."_

"I understand, sir."

" _The press has been hounding me non-stop, and I don't have to remind you that the 48-hour timeframe is closing on this case, Beckett."_

"No, sir, you don't. Castle and I will find a motel and get started on the victim's office first thing tomorrow."

" _See that you do, Detective."_

The line clicks and Beckett pauses, feeling frustration, anger, a twinge of shame and embarrassment, but then awkwardness, longing, relief, and tenseness as she turns and looks back over at him, just standing up from the back of the ambulance with his phone to his ear. Just after the crash now feels like a missed opportunity. Like it was a perfect time and she let it slip through her fingers. As if things weren't hard enough between the two of them already, now she just got them into a car crash they're both very lucky to have survived, let alone walked away from unscathed.

She lets out a small sigh, staring at the very steep uphill battle she's facing with him and quickly turns as the tow truck starts to beep. "Wait, excuse me!" She calls and waves to the driver. "I just need to get something from the back seat." She says.

The driver nods and stops the hoist. She quickly steps up to the rear passenger side door, pops it open and grabs the case file, then goes to open the trunk to get her back until she feels her phone go off in her pocket again. She quickly answers it as she flings the door closed. "Beckett." Once she hears the cackle on the other end, she shakes her head. "Yeah, yeah, _laugh_ it up, Espo." She says and quickly moves out of the way of the driver, waving him back to his work, her folder in her hand.

* * *

Castle is just standing up from the ambulance as the phone rings in his ear. " _Hi, Dad."_

"Hey, Pumpkin." He says, a soft smile appearing on his face, which feels like the first in a long time. The sound of his daughter's voice always seems to do that. "I'm just calling to let you know that Beckett and I got into an accident on our way upstate."

" _Are you okay?"_ She asks with fear evident in her voice.

"No, no, we're both fine. But it looks like we're not going to get home tonight like we'd planned to."

" _Gram said that you didn't seem too eager to leave with Beckett. Is everything okay?"_

Castle lets out a sigh, not wanting to unload all of his personal problems out on his daughter, she's the last person he'd want to do that to. He's always been pretty careful to keep his love life, or at least personal life, away from her and his being a father ever since Meredith made it clear she had no intention of being a mother. He's talked about Beckett with her on some things, she has to hold some place in his professional life, being the inspiration for the main character of his newest best-selling series. But as far as personal feelings and emotional problems, he's kept it away from his daughter. "No, everything's fine, sweetie." He quickly reassures. "I was just hoping to get back home tonight, that's all."

" _Well, I'll take care things here for the night."_

"Don't eat anything your grandmother feeds you, okay?"

Alexis giggles on the other end of the line, which sends Castle's heart swelling. " _And what am I supposed to do, go hungry?"_

"Trust me, Alexis. You're much better off." He says with a smile.

" _We'll be fine, Dad."_

"Okay, sweetie. Call me if you need anything."

" _Love you, Dad."_

"Love you too, pumpkin." He says with a smile and presses his thumb to the screen to end the call just as he sees the tow truck starting down the road with Beckett's crumpled Crown Vic secured to the back. He misses the days when he was 'daddy' instead of 'dad'. He's been holding his breath for the day when she starts her wild-child phase that Beckett warned him about. The thought that she'll look at him with disdain, look right passed him and go upstairs and close her bedroom door. He doesn't think he'll survive if Alexis decides to go through what Beckett did during her high school years.

Beckett watches him with crossed arms and a smile from a good distance away. She's always loved watching him be a father. It's the one thing that will bring out his best qualities the most, and bring them out the quickest. His caring, his heart, his compassion, his nobility, his loyalty. She can always see them so clearly when he's being Alexis's father. And she's scared to come up and get things started again after their crash, especially watching him talk to Alexis on the phone. Seeing his warm smile and his openness radiate from him as she read the words 'love you' on his lips, it's making everything between them all too real.

But she does it anyway, taking a hesitant step forward just as the ambulance pulls away and they're left with just one sheriff's duty with his lights flashing, the sky dark with a light sprinkle in the air. He catches her eyes and she can see the moment when he puts that shield back up when his brow lowers as he slips his phone back into his back pocket. "So?" She asks.

"Aside from a stiff shoulder, I'm fine." He says, rolling his right shoulder where his weight slammed against the seatbelt. "It's a miracle we weren't hurt." He says and shoves his hands into his pockets, standing in front of her in the grass a few feet away from the shoulder of the road.

"Well, our cars are built to take a beating." She jokes halfheartedly with a smile.

"What'd Gates say?" He asks. And as he does, she feels yet another pang hit her heart. They'd usually spend another few minutes bantering back and forth before. She had even hoped he'd make some kind of Smokey and the Bandit joke about how her car might still drive. But it seems he just wants to be all business with her. Just partners... if that.

She nods her head and tightens her arms around herself with her folder in her hand behind her. It's getting slightly cold out with the sprinkle starting to turn into rain, and all she's wearing is a thin blazer and a dark long sleeve shirt underneath, with a thin pair of black slacks. The wind is cutting right through her. "Well... I'm gonna have to fill out a mountain's worth of paperwork when I get back, but they're sending up another car tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" He asks, his voice seeping with frustration. He clearly had his heart set on being home by tonight.

And she feels the guilt hit her with a thud that she never told him he probably wasn't going to make it back home by tonight whether they crashed or not. All she can do is shrug her shoulders and tighten her lips into a thin line, "Bureaucracy."

He sighs heavily and nods, narrowing his eyes against the wind. After another tense moment if silence, the deputy comes to stand next to them. "Deputy, is there a motel back in town?" She asks.

He shakes his head, "Sorry, Detective. Nearest one is just down the road a bit. We're just wrapping up here and I can drop you two off there."

Beckett smiles thankfully, "Thank you, deputy." The deputy smiles in return and goes back to his patrol car.

Beckett lets out a long, shivering breath as she tugs her blazer around herself tighter, fighting against the sharp wind slicing through the air. In another time, he'd slip off his jacket and slip it onto her shoulders without hesitation, or even step up behind her and snake his arms around her to offer her the warmth of his body. And if he wasn't so sure that she'd slap him and shove him away, he might have considered it if he felt up to the feeling of having her in his arms again. But he doesn't and she would.

The only times she's ever been able to bear being in his arms is when she's not in her right mind, when she's being frozen to death, when she's too overcome with just having survived an explosion to not know what she's doing, or when she'd just been shot. It would be nice to have her in his arms, but it would be a lot nicer to have someone in his arms who actually wants to be there. And she doesn't. He knows that. So he just lets out another sigh and rolls his aching shoulders back and lifts his head, stoically staring off against the cold rain hanging in the air.

As the deputy waves them over to the patrol car, she takes one last glance in his direction and feels colder. They're not even standing as close as they used to. There was a time when he was so quick and eager to invade her personal space, but now it's not like he's mindful of it, it's like he doesn't even want to be there anymore. And she's feeling it, feeling him pushing her away. She'd thought that the crash would at least addle his brain enough to soften him up a bit to her, that he'd be a bit more shaken and in need of aid than he is now.

He must be a lot stronger than she thought.

She just falls into step with him, edging closer and closer to him with every step they take toward the patrol car as they slip into the back seat together and head down the road.

They're silent for the ride as they stare out each of the passenger windows. It's a short, five-minute drive until they pull into a medium-sized parking lot, with two cars parked in front of a long, one-story building with lights on in two of the six windows, and a detached office off to the left, good ways away from the rooms. "Here we are." The deputy says in a friendly voice.

Castle groans as he steps out into the heavy sprinkle, hearing Beckett get out the other side.

"Be careful." The deputy says before he can close his door. "It's supposed to storm tonight. Best to stay indoors."

Castle rolls his eyes, picturing how the events of the night are going to go. In separate rooms, as far away from each other as possible, just like they both want right now. He knows that's what he wants, but the fact that he's certain that's what she wants is just making him want it more. "Like we have any other plans." He mumbles to himself as he flings the door closed just as Beckett is walking around the front of the car and going toward the office.

Her budget can afford two rooms in this place. And right now, she just needs to be by herself, if anything to gather herself. To recharge her emotional batteries so they can at least work together and get home as early as they can tomorrow. After that...

She hardens herself as she flings open the door to the small building marked 'check-in'. The middle-aged clerk, eyes staring off into an open newspaper as a small TV hisses with the noise of a crowd and a sports announcer, doesn't move to greet them, seeming uninterested as he rolls a toothpick around in his mouth. "Hi, we'd like two rooms." Beckett says and sets her folder down onto the counter, taking out her phone.

"Only got one." He says with a drawl.

Castle's breath hitches from his place looking over a rack of old trip brochures. He quickly looks out the glass door to the parking lot, seeing only two cars.

"But..." Beckett starts, "there's only two cars in the parking lot and there's six rooms here."

"Got three rooms down for repairs... less you want one of them." He says and looks over at them with a raised brow.

Not having the energy to fight, she just rolls her eyes and concedes. "Fine, we'll take it." She says and waves her hands toward herself.

The clerk doesn't bother to stand up, and instead leans forward and pulls a key off the wall, handing it to her over the counter. She takes it and grabs her phone off the counter after checking the text from Espo about the lack of leads on the victim. And with her phone in one hand and the room key in the other, she nods. "Furthest on the right."

Beckett spins on a heel and pushes open the door with Castle slowly following behind her into the rain. They quickly jog across the parking lot through the light rain just as they here a low rumble of thunder roll over their heads. Beckett is at the door first and is fumbling with the key as Castle's feet is slamming to a stop behind her, shaking himself of rain as he comes under the awning.

Well, one room might be a bit of a problem. He can probably make up some excuse and get to bed early to avoid having to deal with what is sure to be her hatred of not having a room to herself so she could have her privacy. She's always held her privacy above all else, especially with him. So, being forced to share a room in a dingy motel with him is probably pretty low on her list of things she'd rather die than have to do. He just rolls his eyes as Beckett finally manages to open the door and flick on the light.

But when she scans the room, she feels her heart turn to a rock in her throat. "This can't be right." She says as she hears his footsteps come up behind her.

"You've got to be kidding me..." He groans over her shoulder.

"There's only one bed." She says. If this were any other time between them, she'd see an opportunity. But all she sees is one giant problem. _Well, not giant,_ she thinks to herself bitterly.

"And it's small."

* * *

 _A/N: Let me know if you noticed Beckett... 'forgot' a few things. ;)_


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: Short, little chapter. But I think you guys will like. Let me know. :)_

* * *

Just finishing up in the bathroom, she feels a deep thwack of stupidity as she goes through what she needs to do for the night. She remembers grabbing the case file from the backseat but also remembers not walking into the room with it in her hands. She feels the need to stay behind this closed door for the rest of the night, a tightly enclosed space with a hissing, noisy toilet and a bathtub with off-yellow flower decals stuck to the bottom. He's obviously annoyed with her, with the room, with the crash, with being alone with her, with everything, and she wants to just shut it all out.

That's not her partner out there. It's not the man who told her that he loved her. She can feel him changing himself, putting up that shield, erecting his own wall that she has yet to figure out how to scale. He seemed to figure out how to scale hers a long time ago, maybe even before she told him about it. But no matter what she tries, she just can't seem to get around his. She misses the man that she's become comfortable with, the man she's known, the man who's become her partner, the man she's been falling for.

She pushes out a tight, long breath and opens the door, running her fingers behind her ear and looking down to the floor. Coming through the door, the bed is against the left wall, with a large window next to the door. There's a small night stand with a lamp sitting on top, and a long table with a small TV on a swivel stand sitting on it, with a small dining table with two chairs pushed under it. She looks up after pretending to become intrigued by something imaginary on the table and looks up through her lashes and sees him standing at the window, looking through the curtains.

She can hear an intense downpour fall on the rooftop, just as a flash of white lightning strobes the window. "You know," He says, his hands in his pockets, his voice seeming softer and more toneful, peering out the window, "I always thought I would die doing something heroic."

Her brow scrunches as she feels an interested smile tighten her lips.

"Like..." He begins, shrugging his shoulders, still looking out the window, "trying to save someone drowning in a lake, err... pulling someone from a burning building or something."

She feels her heart warmed, still being able to feel his arms around her as he practically carried her out of her hellish apartment with nothing but the clothes on his back and hope. "You've already done that, Castle." She says softly.

He feels his heart jump when she reminds him of that. It's not that he didn't think of it, it's her tone as she says it. It sounds so soft, almost caring, it's a tone that seems so alien coming from her. He quickly turns and sees her standing at the table that's sitting at the end of the TV stand with a smile softly gracing her beautiful features. "Right... well..." He says trying to play it off. "You know what I mean." He shakes his head and peers back out the window.

"Castle, why are you bringing this up, anyway?" She asks with a giggle in her voice, looking for where she put the case file.

"I've seen how this ends enough to know how it goes down, Beckett. A couple trapped for the night at a motel in the middle of nowhere on a dark and stormy night? First, the lights go out, next thing we know, we're being chased through the woods by a lunatic with a chainsaw and a clown mask."

" _Couple?"_

Her voice sends his blood cold and his eyes wide. He quickly looks over his shoulder again, pinching his brow. "... of _partners._ A couple of partners is what I said, not... not couple, no." He corrects himself, even as he sees the lift in her brow and her agape smile as she crosses her arms challengingly. He simply swallows and looks out the window. "But you know how it goes. It's always the handsome, charming, debonair, innocent guy with a sensitive side that's the first to go."

And seeing an opportunity, she pounces. "Oh, good, we don't have anything to worry about, then."

But he just deeply rolls his eyes and grinds his teeth. He knows that she's kidding and he probably left himself wide open for that one, but after this long of putting up with her insults, he's not having it. And he's shoving the words her way before he can decide if the consequences are worth it. "Would it _kill_ you to compliment me once in a while?"

His harsh voice stings her like venom running coldly through her veins. The anger firing in his eyes, the crease in his brow, the clench in his teeth... that's not the man who loved her. She thought that jibing him would at least bring him back, maybe even crack a smile. They've always been so quick to rib each other, drive each other up a wall and haven't been that quick to just force it to a stop. Like he was taking her seriously. And once the tone of his voice goes, his words come into her mind. She never thought he needed that, he never seemed that needy, or even this sensitive. He seemed confident and egotistical enough without her stoking it.

His eyes are still boring into her as he sees her lowered brow and mouth hanging open, caught off guard at him snapping at her like that. "Just for that, I'm not coming back to get you when you trip in the woods as we're running from the killer."

And she can tell that when he raises his brow and lowered his head that his features are softening toward her, even as he turns and looks back out the window. She shakes her head and looks up, a tight clench in her throat. "Well, I'm not too worried about that, Castle. I think I can handle myself enough to protect both of us." She says, slipping her blazer off her shoulders.

"And you're not worried about me? Haven't you ever seen The Shining?"

She chuckles as she hangs her blazer over one of the chairs. "Alright, Castle. If you decide to go crazy and come after me with an ax, at least I'll die knowing it was because I didn't go to charm school." She says in a sarcastic drawl as she turns toward the nightstand, looking for the case file.

"You do know that she got away in the movie, right?" He says, not turning from the window as another crack of lightning flashes through the blinds.

"Have you seen the case file? I want to organize some notes for tomorrow." She says, turning to scan the room.

Castle turns and looks toward the table over his shoulder with his hands still stuffed into his pockets. "Didn't you pick it up when we left the front desk?"

She feels yet another thwack of stupidity hit her as she rolls her eyes, remembering now that she left it sitting on the counter at check-in. "I'll be right back." She says as she's darting out the door and into the rain.

"Wait-"

He's cut off by the door closing. He quickly looks back out the window, seeing the faint outline of her running the long distance separating the room and the office. He never understood how she was able to run in those heels. He watches intently as the door to the office flings open, then is being pushed back open just a few seconds later before it can close all the way. He sees another flash of lightning crack, outlining her silhouette. When he sees it, he's instantly hit by a pull of sorrow.

When the door flies open and she stumbles inside, he almost can't stand to see her like this. His eyes rove over her as she slowly pushes the door closed with her black folder in her hand. Her hair is hanging down and drenched in stringy strands, her light purple blouse is wet and clinging to her skin, and she's standing at the door, hunched over as her nose hangs onto a drop of rain. When he can plainly see her shoulders shiver, he caves to his chivalrous ways. "Are you okay?" He asks in a caring voice.

She looks over to him, seeing him look over toward with a worried arch in his brow, the first honest expression he's shown her all day. She smirks despite herself and waves a hand. "Yeah, I'm fine." She says, halfway lying for her own good, even as she feels the cold of the rain sink into her skin.

"Beckett, you're not fine. You just ran through a thunderstorm and you don't have any clothes to change into." He says and shuffles toward her, taking his hands out of his pockets.

"I _did._ But I accidentally left them in the trunk of my car before they hauled it off." She says with a shake in her voice.

"Alright," He says as he pulls off his suede jacket. "You're gonna get sick if you keep that shirt on." He tosses his jacket onto the bed, untucks his shirt and begins to unbutton his shirt.

Kate watches with a pounding heart as his fingers quickly work the buttons of his pale blue, long-sleeved shirt. Once he unbuttons the last button, the sides fall open to reveal a tight, white tank top underneath, and her throat closes. But when his arms move behind him to tug the sleeves down his arms, her mouth goes dry. His arms flex strongly with hidden, but softly defined muscle, his shoulders are rock-solid as he pulls his arms out of the shirt, his softly outlined abs crunch together under the tight fabric of the tank top. When he's holding the shirt in front of him, offering it to her, she can't hear his voice over the blood rushing in her ears and the tight coil in her stomach.

"Here."

But Kate's eyes are still wide and boring into his softly defined, broad, muscular chest under the fabric of the under tanktop. Her eyes are still greedily raking over his well-hidden features, the sharp curve of his bicep with the deep line of his triceps, the soft, deep valley between his softly defined pecs. Her body feels weak looking at him. But her hand is slowly reaching up and taking the shirt in her hand even as her eyes rake over him one last time before her mind finally tells her what it is she's doing.

Gawking.

She shakes her head and quickly looks away, the heat of her body contrasting violently with the wet chill of her clothes on her skin.

"You should probably take a hot shower to warm yourself up."

 _I'm boiling,_ she thinks to herself. As she offers him a small smile, speechless as she nods and slowly moves on shaky legs toward the bathroom. She slides the door shut and spins, leaning against it for support, throwing her head back and letting her eyes drift shut, letting a long, deep sigh, closing her throat to keep it turning into a moan. He's always kept all that hidden from her view, with his nice shirts and sport coats. He never boasted about exercising or flexed his muscles at her, never posed like Hercules like she would think he would do if he had all that.

She shakes her head as her brain is imagining her hands exploring it all before she looks down and sees the shirt in her hands. She pushes out another breath, feeling ridiculous at the thought as she turns on the water to the shower. But as she waits for it to heat up, she can't help it and presses the fabric into her mouth and nose, taking a long, deep whiff. And just as she thought, he quickly overpowers all of her senses.

She takes her shower, letting the hot water scald her already crawling body for a mind-addled twenty minutes. She can feel her eyes burn right as she's about to shut off the water. He's just the kind of man that would offer her the shirt off his back. It's just a simple show of his endless generosity, how deep he can reach into that big heart of his, and how quickly he will for someone he cares about. Because, at the very least, the shirt that's hanging off the edge of the towel rack waiting for her is a sign that he does still care about her.

And that, in some other time, he felt strongly enough for her to tell her how he felt. That he loved her. Once upon a time, he was in love with her. That caring, kind-hearted, funny man that _was_ around before all this loved her. The man she's doing this awkward dance, this tense back and forth clearly doesn't love her. And it's that that's been sending doubts over everything. Maybe he doesn't love her after all, maybe what she was starting to fear the most is actually true and that he only said it because she had been shot and he panicked.

But she's been running those words through her mind a lot. The tone in his voice and the feeling of his hands on her as she laid in the grass that hot, humid summer day.

" _Kate... I love you. I love you, Kate."_

There was so much wrong with so much about everything with that. His timing, their fight, her ending their relationship, her life turning upside down with a single gunshot just before he threw yet another monkey wrench to delay her healing, Josh, then her lying. A part of her was still angry at him for everything he'd said that night. And when she came back, he seemed so understanding that when she told him about her wall that she told him without actually telling him was keeping her from loving him back.

But now... she's been feeling herself open up more, being more honest with herself when it comes to her heart and the willingness to risk it. She's been searching herself for the past months for what it is she would feel if she just accepted that he did say he loved her that day instead of pretending it never happened. And the word love seems too strong in her mind, but also... it feels too brutally honest to let go.

As she shuts off the water and slides the shower curtain over, she sees his shirt hanging on the towel rack, a sign from him that he still cares for her, it's time to start letting the taste of the words beome familiar, for the words to become a mantra, a way to describe what it is she feels for him in a set of simply complex words.

She's in love with him.


	8. Chapter 8

There's a smile tingling her lips and a confidence rising in her. She feels hopeful in them again, the need to fight for them and bring him back. She's going to tell him soon, about everything and is going to show him that they can be together and be it for each other. The fact that she's never been in a real, serious relationship before is something that's been holding her back with Castle for too long. She always knew that if it was to happen with them, she would have to commit part of herself to the relationship, that she would have to sacrifice her comfort zone for the sake of the happiness he would promise her.

She's never been willing to do that for anyone before. It's another testament to herself that what they have is real.

Her smile brightens of its own accord for a second when she buttons the second-to-last button. It's excessively baggy on her slender frame, but she can't help but feel one of her daydreams of them be fulfilled. Coming out of the bathroom in one of his shirts. She rolls her eyes to herself again as she presses the sleeves to her nose and taking one last whiff, letting the scent of old book pages, fresh cut wood, and fine whiskey fill her senses.

Swallowing her moan, she opens the door and finds him sitting at the table with his legs crossed, his suede jacket buttoned up with his eyes down to his phone. "I just called the tow truck company and left a message. I guess they're not a twenty-four-hour place."

"Thanks, Castle." She says openly.

His eyes look up briefly to her to simply acknowledge her presence, but when he sees her, his simple look turns to a dumbfounded double-take.

Seeing her like this has been a dream of his. Draped in one of his shirts, her hair frizzy and unbrushed, a smile teasing her lips, her long legs wrapped in those tight black slacks, her breasts perking out slightly under the thin fabric of his shirt, the long... too kissable column of her windpipe contrasting too sexily with the light fabric and the tan of her skin. He forces his eyes away, feeling them physically hurt when the look back down to his phone.

She can't help but notice and think things that probably aren't there when she goes across the room to grab her phone where it's sitting next to the TV and come back around to sit down across from him and cross her legs. If nothing else, it's a good thing that he still thinks she's sexy. It's a foot in the door, at least. She chances a glance as she settles into her chair, seeing him stare over-intently at his phone and her breath turns thick again at the sight of his bare chest showing over his tanktop underneath his suede jacket.

And when she remembers what happened when she tried to tease him, she feels an uncomfortable knot in her stomach as the words rise in her. "You know, I didn't think you had all that, Castle."

He looks up to her again, seeing one side of her lips perked up in a slight smirk. His eternal optimist is telling him what she means, but he doesn't want to feel that stupid if he's wrong. "All of what?"

She looks up from her screen for a second and flashes him a smile before looking back down, "I-I just..." She says, still not looking him in the eye when she shrugs her shoulders, "never figured you were that... cut."

The muscles in his face are fighting a war for the smile that's starting to tease the edges of his mouth. He did notice her staring too stupidly when his white knight came back with a vengeance and he whipped off his shirt right in front of her, but he just figured that she was still coming in from a thunderstorm and wasn't her normal self. But now, he can feel his chest expand and his spine send his nerves on his back tingling. "Well, never leave it up to me to give you a free show, Detective."

Her throat tightens and she doubles over in a fit of semi-silent giggles. And he can't help but feel the same way he does every time a smile like that erupts on her beautiful face; that he just fell for her all over again. But he can't let himself get swooped up in all this. She's sitting in a small motel room with one bed that might as well have a racecar built around it, it's so small, she's wearing his shirt after just coming out of a shower because she ran through a downpour, they are both probably more raddled from the crash than either of them want to admit... it's a recipe for disaster that his old self would pounce at.

Because if he lets himself get trapped into this again, she's going to come back to her senses sooner rather than later, as she always does, and realize that it's not what she wants and push him away yet again, like she does every time. So, he decides to physically harden his chest and bury his emotions behind it and lock his phone, setting it down on the table. "So, how are we going to decide?"

She looks up from her phone with a raised brow, "Decide what?"

He nods over to the bed, clasping his hands in his lap. "Who gets the bed." He states with a shrug of his shoulders.

She can't help but feel a twinge of disappointment clench her throat. She thought that he'd at least fight with her to share it. But he's clearly not having it, and she doesn't have it in her to just be that honest and tell him that she would love to take that hurdle of trying to figure out how to share such a small bed with him. But she just decides to lock her phone and set it down on the table in front of her.

"Well... we could..." She starts and crosses her arms, "flip a coin? Let fate decide."

His brow quirks upward on one side. "That would be tempting if I knew you didn't believe in fate."

"What? It's _fair,_ isn't it?" She argues.

"Do you have one?" He says with a challenging yet soft smirk.

Her eyes look away as she leans back in her chair, "No."

"So..." He says, leaning back in confidence, "if we can't let fate decide... why not merit?"

Her brow creases, "What do you mean?"

"Well," He says on a groan as he stands up, "this motel room may be small, but..." He continues and moves across the room to the nightstand, "it should come equipped standard with..." He trails off as he pulls open the drawer, "Yep, a bible and..." He says and whips around with a deck of cards in his hand, "the thing that will seal your fate... as it were." He says with a smirk.

She leans back and crosses her arms again, letting a smile fall open on her face as she raises her brow. "You want to play _cards_ for who gets to sleep in the bed tonight?" She asks incredulously.

"What we are playing for," he starts and slides the cards out and comes to sit back down, "is for _you_ to sleep in the bathtub."

"The _bathtub?"_ She softly exclaims.

"Why, you scared?" He asks in a non-teasing manner and begins to shuffle the cards on the table.

"You do remember that I kicked your _butt_ last time we played, right?" She says, remembering him leaving the precinct with his head hung in defeat as she won handily with a large pile of gummy bears on her desk.

"Then you shouldn't have any problem doing it again, now would you?" He asks.

Her lips pucker into a tight circle off to the side as she considers his offer. "Alright... but _I_ deal." She says with a finger pointed at him.

"Beckett, don't you trust me?" He asks, feigning being honestly insulted she would think he would cheat.

"Not as far as I can throw you, Castle. You've shown me too many cheap card tricks for me to trust you to deal fairly."

He lets out a long sigh and concedes, putting the cards down with a loud thwack on her side of the table, leaning back with a cocked brow. "One hand."

"Winner gets the bed." She says and takes the cards, shuffling again.

"And you get the bathtub."

She can't swallow the belt of laughter that bellowed out of her stomach in time as she finishes shuffling. "Yeah, in your dreams, Rick."

He feels his breath hitch slightly in his throat. He knows full well his defenses are disengaged right now. He's having trouble keeping them up, being with her in this setting, teasing each other back and forth as they are... especially when she's in one of his favorite shirts. He feels that soft smirk playing on his mouth that's become a natural feature on his face when he's around her. He's still trying to pull himself out of the feeling that he's still deeply in love with her, but knows that she simply doesn't want to be with him and just keeps him around for things that don't keep him staying.

"Five card draw," She starts and begins to deal out the cards quickly, "red threes... black sixes... and the jack of spades are wild."

"What is with you and always making obscure cards wild?" He asks as he's picking his cards up.

"Just pick up your cards and let's play, hoss."

He lets out a long sigh as he looks at his cards. He forcefully relaxes the muscles in his face, seeing he has two nines and a black six, which she made wild. Three of a kind isn't a bad hand.

But she feels an intense smirk try to force its way onto her face as she looks at her own cards. A ten, jack of hearts, queen of spades, a two, and a red three. With luck, she can pick up a wildcard or maybe even a king on the draw. "Alright... pick your cards." She says and takes the two out of her hand and places it face down on the table.

Rick takes out the seven and the queen out of his hand and places them on the table. "I'll take two."

Kate takes the two cards from his side of the table and deals him two more cards, then deals herself one card, anticipation rising in her chest. "Dealer takes one."

When Kate picks up her cards again, she has to flex her face as hard as she can to keep the smile from revealing her hand. With a red three, she actually managed to pick up her ace-high straight. "Alright." She says and leans back, rolling her shoulders back in confidence. "What've you got, Castle?"

Looking at his cards, he needs her to go first. "I'm a slave to my chivalrous ways, Beckett, so... ladies first." He says and motions toward her with his hand.

She finally lets her cocky smirk explode onto her face as she slaps her cards down to the table. "Straight, ace high. _Eat_ it, writer-boy!"

Rick feels a smile spread across his face, looking down to his cards. He just can't do it. He knows that she told him after their little rematch some years ago to never throw a hand for her sake, her pride can take it, but... that bathtub is too uncomfortable for her and she did just get into a car crash. He's slept in far worse anyway. "I have to say, Detective Beckett. I'm uh... humbled, to say the least." He says and shakes his head. "You beat me." He slaps the sides of his cards down to the surface of the table and puts them face down, pushing himself out of his chair.

"Ha." She says and stretches her arms slowly in victory.

"I'll just uh..." He says and looks toward the bathroom, "make myself at home." He moves and lifts his head in the air, marching toward the bathroom, taking his defeat in stride. "I am pretty tired, after all, so..." he says and stops at the doorway, "have fun in what is sure to be a bed that is infested with parasites not seen before on this planet."

"Have fun with the flowers, Castle." She says and stands up, hearing him move about in the bathroom. But... she can't shake this feeling that he's... too adult about losing. And he didn't show her his cards. She quickly looks into the door of the bathroom, seeing him with a towel in his hands, miming trying to figure out how he's going to fit comfortably. And before she can decide against it, she picks up his cards and spreads them out... and her jaw goes slack.

With three nines, a black six, and the jack of spades... "You threw away a five of a kind?" For her.

She looks up and sees him taking off his jacket, and draping it over the edge, seeing the deep lines of soft definition in his muscles flex about as he moves. Her eyes then go to the bed, then back over to him. She puts his cards down and goes to the other side of the table. "Castle."

He looks over to her, a blank stare with only a raised brow. "Hmm?"

Her throat closes when his eyes bore into her, her fear and panic, that same fear of rejection and dread of the unknown, that feeling of standing on the edge of that cliff, just not ready to take that leap. "G'night."

He smirks softly, emotionlessly. "G'night."

* * *

He's starting to regret throwing his hand. He can count on half of one hand the number of times he's gotten five of a kind. But it's her own fault for making such weird cards wild. He has his suede jacket behind his head for a pillow and a damp towel over his torso as a blanket. He's been fighting the intense urge to revel in it, since he knows it's the towel she used to dry herself after her shower earlier that night. His back is starting to ache as he stares up to the dark ceiling.

It's still storming outside, probably a lot harder than it was earlier since there's yet another roll of thunder going over his head. How much more of this does he have to deal with before he can handle just playing around on his phone before it dies? He lifts his writ and sees the glow-in-the-dark hands of his watch show him that it's not even one o'clock in the morning yet. He groans with impatience as he uncomfortably readjusts himself in the tub.

"Uh..."

He hears her outside in the motel room. He moves his head over to look out the cracked door of the bathroom, seeing a quick flash of lightning strobe into the room. He then listens carefully, hearing a quick shuffle of the sheets on the bed. He decides to pay it no mind, thinking she's probably just rolling over in bed and lets out a sigh and looks back up to the ceiling.

"Uh.. n..."

With her soft moans being accompanied a few more quick shuffles in the sheets, he starts to become worried. He puts his hands on the sides of the tub and pushes himself upright, feeling an ache in his tailbone, just as another loud rumble of thunder goes off over their heads. When he hears another rustle of the sheets, they sound too quick and frantic to just be her adjusting herself in bed. And his caring side is being kicked into overdrive. He remembers the times when Alexis had nightmares and she was more scared than anything of sleeping in bed alone.

Deciding to just check on her, he carefully climbs out of the tub and quietly sneaks back into the motel room, hearing the door creak as the hinges move. When he comes into the motel room, he sees the faint outline of her legs kicking under the sheets, sprawled out on her back with her head nodding from side to side. "Uh... no... get... uh..." She whimpers in her sleep as her frantic mewling becomes faster.

"Beckett?" He softly calls, leaning out of the bathroom.

A split second after his voice leaves his throat, there's a loud, sudden crack of thunder that goes off directly over their heads, so loud it vibrates the motel room. And before he can realize what's happening, he sees her body jump up in bed as she groans in pain. He's frozen in place as he watches her spin herself out of bed. Her arm knocks the bedside lamp onto the floor with a loud ceramic clatter and when she falls onto the floor, she quickly leans up and begins to crawl frantically across the floor toward him, her breath still coming out in pained sobs.

"Whoa." He says and quickly falls onto the floor to catch her.

Sitting on the floor behind her as she crawls toward him unawares, he opens his arms and catches her shaking, trembling body. " _Ugh!"_ She groans and begins to shake him off as his arms go around her and hold her to him.

"It's okay, Kate." He says into her ear.

Her arms fight him for just a second before he tightens them around her and she's curling into a ball in his lap, trembling as another aftershock of the thunder rolls over the sky. Her breathing is coming out in quivering shakes and her whole body is trembling in his arms, even as she turns to bury her face into his chest, curling her arms into herself as he holds her on the floor. He looks down and sees a soft reflection of tear tracks stream down her face.

"You're okay, Kate." He soothes.

She lets out another breath and holds it as her body seems to tense in his arms. She lifts her head out of his chest and looks up at him, "Castle?"

He loosens his grip on her, but is taken aback in a flash as she throws her arms around his chest in a tight hug, her breath lets out softer and smoother, blowing down his shirt in a warm breeze. His arms immediately let her go, being stunned and lifting off her. She clamors against his back, tugging and pulling at him, vicing his chest in her arms as she lets out a soft whimper, burying her face into the crock of his neck.

But when he finally lets himself feel her arms around him, he knows that she's vulnerable, but she needs comfort. He slowly weaves his arms around her shoulders, sliding his hands against her back and hugging her to him tenderly. "You're okay, it's just a dream." He says and lays his chin down onto her head. "It's only a dream."

She lets out another long breath, smoother this time and loosens her grip on his chest. He can tell that her mind is starting to come back to her. He knew her shooting had affected her... but he can't help but wonder how many times this has happened when she was alone in her apartment with no one there. But... he knows that she wouldn't want anyone there when her mind comes back. She wouldn't want anyone seeing this weakness in her.

But when her head starts to lift off his chest and she begins to pull back, her eyes find his, dancing in the darkness of soft cracks of lightning. Her mouth is hanging open and her brow is tense. After a second, her features seem to relax as her eyes dart downward and she opens her lips. But when another crack of thunder roars overhead, she jumps and tightens her grip on his chest again, holding him for just a second before she's moving her arms back around to his front and sitting up.

"You okay?" He asks, moving his arms out from around her, now just having her sit in his lap on the floor.

She nods and looks down, brushing her hair behind her ear. "Yeah... sorry, just... a bad dream, I guess." She says on an embarrassed chuckle.

He nods silently, watching closely for signs of her actually being okay. She seems to have come back to her senses. "That doesn't... happen a lot, does it?"

Her eyes find his again, her brow arched only for a second before it knits and she shakes her head. "No, just... I think I'm just a little shaken from the crash is all."

He nods again in agreement. That's understandable. "Well... if you're okay, then you should probably get back to bed. I wouldn't want to deal with a cranky Kate Beckett in the morning."

A smile breaks out onto her face as she breathlessly giggles. "Yeah." She says and stands up slowly. He's standing back up by the time she's crawling back under the covers, and is moving back into the bathroom. "Castle." She calls from the bed.

He pokes his head out of the bathroom, looking over to her lying in the middle of the bed. He only looks for a second before he sees her scoot herself over, moving her body off to the left side of the bed, silently offering him a space. But he can't take advantage of that, of her and of the situation. "Beckett, I-"

"I know you threw your hand, Rick."

He feels himself stop, being caught in the act. But he still doesn't move, not wanting to give her the chance to regret her actions like she always will.

"Please?"

At the sound of her soft, almost desperate voice, he feels his heart pull violently and is moving toward the bed before he can officially convince himself not to. He's at the bedside with a few steps and is reluctantly and hesitently laying down beside her, giving her as much space as she needs and as much as he can afford her on the small mattress. He's frozen, stiff and nervous laying down next to her. But it only lasts a few tense moments before he feels the covers being draped over him and her warm body being curled into his side.

Her head lays down onto his shoulder and her arm lays down onto his chest, her hand teasing his exposed chest as her legs curl into him. He feels his eyes drift shut at the feeling of having the woman he loves, reveling in the feeling of her curl up in his arms in bed, deciding to just let himself have this one thing from her before she starts pushing him away in the morning.

She's vulnerable now and just wants a physical body next to her for comfort, it wouldn't really matter if it was him, Josh, or even Sorenson laying here. But he decides to just accept that it's him who's here and that he'll at least know what it's like before he starts burying his emotions again in the morning for the better.

But he feels himself drift off to sleep as he drapes his arm over her shoulders.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I know you guys want certain things to happen. I know... I know... :)_

 _Keep reading, K? :D_

* * *

Her eyes slowly slip open, sharply aching from the crust in her tear ducts. She squeezes them closed again and reaches up to rub her eyes free, rolling lethargically onto her back, her shoulder falling off the mattress. She finally opens her eyes and sees the room is brightened by the sunlight outside. But as her mind slowly starts to come back to her, along with the memory of last night, a tight cocktail of elation and panic hit her as she quickly looks over to her side, seeing the space next to her empty.

The lamp is still on the floor in betweenthe wall and the nightstand, which holds her father's watch and her mother's necklace, along with her badge and gun. The lampshade is caved in on one side and there's a large crack in one side of the faded teal of the base. She remembers vaguely her nightmare. The only thing she remembers vividly is somehow finding herself cradled in his strong, safe arms, his lips softly breathing soothing words into her ear, then feeling such panic and fear that she did the only thing that she knew would help her and threw her arms around him.

And when she started to fully regain herself and pulled back... she was ready, ready to step over that threshold and lean up to press her lips to his, and she knew full well that stepping over that threshold would lead much, much more. But now...

He's not here.

She pushes herself upright and leans back on her arm, shaking her hair out. She quickly finds the bag she remembers packing sitting next to the TV, with her phone sitting on the table with her charger plugged into the wall. Looking over to her father's watch, it's just after 7:30. She lets out a heavy, depressing sigh. After inviting him to sleep next to her and getting to feel what it feels like to finally curl up next to someone in bed, even one this uncomfortable, for nothing else but the warmth and intimacy of their body, she thought that that would be enough to send a clear message that she's ready.

But she's clearly wrong and he's clearly not ready anymore.

She shakes her head and swings her legs out, stretching out her tired muscles with a yawn. She stands up and pauses, he must have gone back to sleep in the tub. He'd rather sleep in a bathtub than stand to sleep next to her. What happened to them?

But as she peers inside, she sees the tub empty, with the lights off. "Castle?" She asks as she turns around. When she does, she sees a faint outline of someone standing in front of the window. He must be outside. She rolls her eyes to herself with an arched brow. She's been trying this hard and for seemingly nothing. Maybe he just doesn't want her anymore.

She feels her heart sink in her chest as she goes into the bathroom. When something catches her attention, sticking out from beneath the shower curtain, she bends over and picks it up, seeing it's his notepad he takes notes in. It's open to a page near the middle and it's filled with his handwriting.

 _Nikki quaked in his arms. Her strength and confidence, so reliable to Rook just the night before, had been long abandoned._

Her sinking heart quickly goes into her throat. It's easy to separate her partner from her favorite author, the words from the writer. He's always been in her natural habitat at the precinct, so to him, she's a detective. But she's never gotten the chance to see him at the loft, his laptop sitting in front of him as he pours out words like this. So seeing these familiar words that been comforting her for longer than he even knows about in his familiar handwriting is a surreal experience. It feels invasive and wrong to continue reading, but she can't help it. Her curiosity is peaked.

 _She shook like a leaf on the floor, silently screamed out for rescue and shelter. It was so unlike the woman he's let take him away that Rook did the only thing he thought would help and put his arms around her, holding her like she would be swept away if he didn't. "It's okay, Nikki."_

 _Nikki's arms went around him in a flash and Rook tenses like a stone pillar. "Hold me, Jamie."_

 _The want he's had to hear those words collided violently with the shock of hearing them, paralyzing him. Her fingers pulled at his shirt and he gave in. "I'm right here, Nikki."_

 _Her warm breath shook down his neck as she curled herself tighter into his lap. His body shivered when her lips brushed across his skin, moving to speak into the crock of his neck. "Thank you."_

The words end there, three and a half small pages later. She can see it happening in her head, as she always can when she reads his novels. She can see him writing it, scrawling all this on this small notepad, pouring all these words out. He wrote about it. He thought about it and it stuck with him that he had to write it out. She doesn't get to see what makes him a writer very often.

For years, he was just the picture on the back and the name on the front. It was easy not to get starstruck, especially not after she actually met him outside of just being another face in a book signing. He was that annoying, childish playboy signing women's fake chests at book parties with a sharpie in one hand and a glass of champagne in the other, immature even in front of the dead body. It was just a simple flick of the switch in her mind, almost as if he wasn't the man that wrote the words that helped her cope with her mother's death.

But seeing those same words in her hands in his very recognizable handwriting is forcing her to make that connection. He's dedicated books to her, as an act of complimenting her and thanking her, but even still, his novels are written well enough to where she can get encased in them and she can quickly forget that it's him who wrote them, and even that it's her who the novel is dedicated to. She can't help but feel her throat close at that. If he's pulling away this hard, who are these words going to get dedicated to?

With a squeezing heart, she flips the notepad closed and sets it back down onto the edge of the tub. After a few minutes, she goes back into the motel room, seeing that faint outline still stand motionless on the other side of the curtain, and grabs her suitcase, going about the process to apply her makeup, put her hair back into a loosely done ponytail, and change into a blue turtleneck sweater and a pair of black denim jeans. Hardening her heart in her chest, she opens the front door to the motel room and feels the cool spring breeze hit her with a waft in the face.

At least it feels nice outside. She leans out and sees him leaning against the air conditioning unit jetting out from the wall under the window with the case file open in his hands. "Hey." She says with a lift.

He looks up to her and smirks. "Hey." He says and holds her stare for a split second before going back down to the file.

He'd woken up just under an hour ago and found her practically draped over him in bed, her leg was laying dead over his, her arm was squeezing his ribs, and her face was pressed into his chest. He was reluctant to leave her in bed alone, but he didn't want to see the reaction she'd have when reality set back in and she found herself asleep with him. It was just as challenging trying to get out of bed without waking her as it was making the decision in the first place. He's wanted to cradle her to sleep for a long time now, but now that he started letting his devil's advocate guide his conscience, it's hard to shut off.

After writing it all out, getting out of his system what he saw happening in his mind, he went outside to meet the tow truck driver delivering her bag and decided to go over what they had on the case.

She can feel the thick layer of awkwardness sink in between them. If she had the courage, she could just spew all the words out, ask him why he wasn't next to her, why he felt such a strong need to sleep on his own, why he's really so hell-bent on pulling away, if he really meant what he said that day in the cemetery. But she's not. "I-I..." She says and puts her hands in her back pockets, "put your shirt on the table."

He smirks toward her again, looking over at her for another moment. "Thanks." He says vacantly.

She's never going to crack through this shell, is she? "And... the-my bag, also." All he does is widen his smile a bit more and nod his head, not taking his eyes off the file. "You know, you didn't have to go back and sleep in the tub, Castle." She says, the words slipping around her mental filter.

"Beckett, I once slept on the balcony of an Atlantic City hotel in my underwear. I think I can handle one night in a bathtub." He says with a quirked brow.

When she can hear that same cocky, arrogant, know-it-all tone of that playboy that she thought he'd left behind him some time ago, she feels her heart sink again. "Well, thanks again, Castle." She says and looks out toward the street. "Last night, I... wasn't exactly my normal self."

"Well, I've had to deal with nightmares before, no biggie."

She then turns back to him, his tone shifting slightly. "Alexis?"

He smirks, almost sadly when he looks back up to her. He shrugs his shoulders briefly and looks back down to the file. "It was right after Meredith left. I had to go out of town on a book tour for the weekend and had to leave her with my mother. And for some reason, she thought that letting my five-year-old daughter watch Leprechaun before bed was a good idea."

"Oh... god." Beckett says on a hard chuckle.

"Apparently, when Alexis suggested it, my mother thought it was a kid's movie and let her watch it while she was busy rehearsing upstairs." Castle then looks back up at her. "Alexis would crawl into bed with me for about a month straight because she was so scared."

"That must have been hard." She says. She can quickly feel herself falling for him again, despite his distance. The amount he loves Alexis astounds her sometimes.

"Well, no father wants to see their daughter that terrified, but..." He says with a sad gleam to his eyes as they go down to the file again, "it's nice to have someone count on you." He mumbles under his breath.

She feels another pull in her heart. And she would call him on it if it hadn't hit her this hard. His tone said it like he meant it as an insult. All she can muster is a small nod and a crane of her neck, looking down to her shuffling feet. "So... what are you doing?" She asks, nodding over to him.

"I'm just reading some of the personal statements you guys gathered from her co-workers."

"Yeah." She says, knowing their both delving into the case, leaving everything else for later, or maybe even never. "By all accounts, Claire Daniels was a strong, independent, dedicated woman who never gave up."

"She was always the type to jump into the lion pit because she thought she could survive, not because she thought it would get her killed." He responds.

Her brow knits. "What?"

He flips to another page, "It's what a secretary said when asked if she was the type to commit suicide. Always the type to ingore overwhelming odds and jump in headfirst, thinking she could survive."

Beckett nods, "Yeah, everyone said it wouldn't be like her to kill herself. And with the stain on her hand, I'm convinced it was murder."

"Did she have any open investigations?"

"We uh..." She starts and crosses her arms, "we don't know. Everyone said that up until about eight months ago, she worked with a partner. But he's a John Doe, so that led nowhere. But they did say that she seemed distracted the past few months. No one seemed to know what caused it, but... I have a feeling that it had something to do with whatever got her killed."

"Any family?"

"Her father was killed in a car crash about four years ago. And her mother has been overseas ever since, on some sort of... self-reflection retreat in Finland or something."

"No boyfriend?" He asks and flips back to the first page he was on.

"Single as far as we can tell, but... by the looks of it, she mostly just had her job."

"Attractive, young, head-strong woman in her late twenties? Hard to imagine she didn't at least date."

"Yeah, she was even a black belt in Krav Maga."

"Really?" He asks, flipping through pages quickly. "That's hot. Why don't you do something like that?" He asks with a quick look up to her.

"Maybe because I have a gun, Castle."

"That's pretty hot, too." He says on a nod. "Well, maybe we'll find something at her office." He says and nods up toward the road.

She quickly looks over her shoulder and sees a dark Crown Vic pulling into the parking lot with an NYPD patrol car right behind it. She waves them over then turns back toward Castle. "I'll just go get my stuff and we can check out."

"Don't bother stealing a towel." He cracks blankly, seeing the two patrolmen step out into the parking lot.

He's built this character in his head, has read every word of all the personal statements on the victim. She's a strong, independent woman who's dedicated to her job with a ferocity that most people couldn't muster up in a lifetime of trying. She may have had a boyfriend here and there, but she would have always felt the need to swallow her deeper, more vulnerable emotions and not let anyone see them. And if you're looking for a serious relationship, that can't happen. She would have felt that if she can't stand on her own two feet, she would rather be on the ground than have someone there to help her up, simply because it would mean someone needing to see her weakness.

He didn't want to tell Beckett all this, but that gets very old and very tiring. He's dwelling on the problems between them, and he's aware of that, even as he goes back in and finds his shirt hanging off the side of the table with his notepad sitting next to it. He can see the shadow move about from the light in the bathroom, hearing glass and plastic clatter together while he's buttoning up his shirt, leaving it untucked and slipping his jacket back on.

The fact that she would have curled up with anyone that was in this motel room has been swimming around in his head all morning. She's waved her relationships in his face before and he's always been pretty quick to let it go. Even that day when he went to see her in the hospital, he'd felt so much standing at that door; embarrassment, shame, guilt, nervousness, joy, awkwardness... then when he walked through that door, thinking he'd have to face down what he'd said to her, he was stung with the sight of Josh at her bedside, smiling and laughing... with her.

He was probably wrong with what he had said that night, she probably did love Josh. Because for all she knows, he never said 'I love you', he never confessed his feelings. It's better that way anyway. It's better that she doesn't remember... she'd probably never speak to him again if she did remember. She'd probably yell at him and scorn him even harder than she did that night in her apartment.

And she'd probably be right.


	10. Chapter 10

_A/N: You guys wanted something to get them talking, well..._

* * *

The drive up to the small town, nestled in the thick woods of upstate New York, is silent. It's not tense nor awkward. Just silent, like neither of them know what to say to each other, how to continue.

Castle can feel the small town feeling as he looks down the streets and boroughs. Men walking dogs in the warm sunlight of early spring, happily married couples sitting outside of local eateries they've probably been going to for years, a mother with a grocery bag in one hand and her six-year-old son in the other, the people here seem more connected, down to Earth, more human.

Beckett can feel the silence between them like a deep, bottomless chasm with not even a rickety rope bridge to try and get across to him. Has she really pushed him so far away that not even inviting him to the same bed to cuddle her to sleep will bring him back? What else does she have to do to get him to a place where he'd listen and actually believe what she has to say? It can't be an act of desperation, a last-ditch effort to try and save whatever it is that they have together.

Because she does want more.

And all morning, in the back of his mind, Castle has been mulling over everything. He's watched her more closely than she'd ever be comfortable with if she ever knew the true extent. And now, he can't help but notice things. She didn't fight him when he offered her his shirt last night, didn't try to roll her shoulders back and just sit in her wet clothes out of pride. She wasn't mad that he threw his hand, even though she obviously found out before they put the cards away. She invited him to sleep in the same bed as her, after she's just showed more vulnerability and weakness than she'd ever show to anyone.

There's an explanation for all of it, though. A rational reason and easy way to explain away her behavior, and he can't afford to be wrong. He can't afford to think now that all this means she's actually ready. Because if he starts going down that path, he'd throw himself at her and not look back. And if he does that and he's wrong, admitting he was right all along will be hard to recover from.

As they near the center of town, Beckett looks around the town. "So, we just have to stop at the local sheriff's office to get access to the scene."

"That should be fun." Castle grumbles as she pulls into a small parking lot, with white, green, and tan sheriff's patrol cars fill a few spaces. Castle and Beckett step out and he takes this opportunity to take a deep breath of the cool, fresh air.

They make their way across the small parking lot, quickly falling into step with each other and Beckett takes a quick look over to him. "Thanks for coming, Castle."

He looks over, squinting as the sunlight shines in his eyes, offering her a small smile. "Well, it is nice out here, anyway."

She nods as she steps onto the curb, just a few feet away from the glass door with a large police emblem decal on it. "Yeah, my dad's cabin isn't too far from here actually."

Suddenly being hit with that dark feeling of loneliness that comprised of those two months, followed by all those insecurities he swallowed down just so he could be with her in some capacity, deciding that it was better than not being with her at all, he feels his shoulders tighten, his emotions growing cold. "I'm surprised you didn't stay longer." He says, grabbing the edge of the door she just swung open.

"Well, I was going a bit stir crazy after two months." She halfway lies. Those two months are a blur to her. The days went by slow, but the time went by quick.

"Right." He semi-groans as the door slides closed behind him.

Beckett steps up to the front desk, where a tall, slightly muscular man in a black polo shirt with a badge hanging out of the pocket is standing, looking down at a set of paperwork. He looks up, and Castle can't help but notice the way the man's squared-off jaw lifts into a smile, not even bothering to look over her shoulder to see him.

Beckett moves to take her badge out of her breast pocket. "I'm Detective Beckett with the NYPD," she says and slips her badge back as the man behind the desk is putting his hands on his waist, "and this is my partner, Richard Castle. I believe my captain has already contacted you about the Claire Daniels murder."

The man still doesn't look back to acknowledge him, and with that, Castle can't even stand the sight of what he knows is about to ensue between these two, and decides to shove his hands into his pockets and turns to meander away from them, his heart in his throat.

"Yes, it's nice to meet you, Detective. Deputy Monroe." He says and extends his hand across the desk, shaking her hand gently while he flashes a smile, which Beckett can tell right away is a flirting smile. And she feels exactly what she feels every time this happens, especially now that she's let those words taste her tongue. Nothing. It's flattering, and he's handsome enough, and maybe a few years ago, she would have accepted it, but not now. The deputy leans back and crosses his arms, "it's a real shame to hear about Claire. She grew up around here."

"Well, we're starting to hit a dead-end in the case and we're looking for access to her office here in town." She says, motioning toward Castle, whose a ways away, looking away from them and is standing in front of a glass case full of commendations.

"You're in luck, Detective Beckett." He says with a smirk and moves around the desk, waving her back. She follows with a knitted brow, moving around the desk and reaching over, tapping her partner on the elbow.

"Castle." She says, receiving a blank look over his shoulder toward her. She nods her head off to the side, motioning him to follow her. She can hear him let out a hard sigh as he moves to follow her.

The deputy stops in the middle of the sheriff's office and nods over to the holding cell. "We got the guy already."

When Beckett's eyes find a man, looking early thirties at the most, wearing a pair of faded jeans, a green, army cargo jacket, and a thick layer of scruff with a short wave in his hair, passed out dead along with bench, she looks over to the deputy, smiling over at her. "I'm sorry?"

The deputy nods and looks back over to the man, still passed out in the holding cell bunk, "John Doe."

It's then that Beckett digs her phone out of her pocket. "Well, we'll get the Twelfth precinct to run his face through our database and-"

"No, no, Detective." He says with a chuckle. "His _actual_ name... is John Doe."

And when she hears that, she feels another hard thwack of stupidity and realization hit her. She looks over to Castle, who's standing a little closer to her side than he has been, "When Claire's co-workers said her partner was a _John Doe,_ the uni's must have thought that they meant they didn't know who he was."

Castle, with a cocked brow and curious expression, his mind finally moving with intrigue at the case, looks over from Beckett to the deputy. "Why's he in there?"

"Well, when we heard that you had ruled Claire's death a murder, we just so happened to pick this guy up last night for drunken and disorderly here at a local watering hole."

Looking over at yet another Mr. Perfect trying to win her over, Castle delves back into his mentality and pulls out his rapier wit. "Right, because drunken and disorderly conduct is _so_ on par with first-degree murder."

"How exactly are you sure he's the one who killed Claire Daniels?" Beckett asks, bringing the deputy's attention back to the case at hand when she sees him look over to her partner with a deadpan brow.

The deputy looks over to her again, "Because that's her boyfriend."

"But we couldn't find anything that indicated she was seeing anyone." Beckett argues.

"Well," The deputy says and rolls his eyes, "they _claimed_ to just be 'partners'," he says with air quotes before he crosses his arms back over his chest, "but everyone around here knew they had a thing going."

Castle can't help but feel his heart harden when he says that.

"Something tells me," The deputy starts and leans in close to Beckett, far too close for Castle's comfort, with his voice lowered, "that he had a bit of a guilty conscience. No one's seen him around here since last June. He comes back for one day and his girlfriend is killed?" He asks and smirks over to Beckett again, and Castle can feel his gut churn.

"Well, we'll need to question him, Deputy." Beckett says, feeling herself start to lean closer toward her partner slightly.

The deputy nods, flashing her another bright smile as he turns to move across the office. "We'll get him set up in the conference area. If you'll... follow me."

Beckett turns to follow, briefly turning to look over her shoulder to give Castle a sheepish smile. But Castle just looks too distant and hard to get to, a dull blankness in his eyes as they seem to look right through her. She watches him for a moment as he stares at her blankly and then looks passed her and over to the deputy before she concedes to his distance and moves across the office.

Castle watches as the deputy struts around the office confidently, puffing his chest out and flashing his teeth to her. It's a confidence that Castle can't muster up to save himself. When she turns away to follow him, he feels a cold chill go through his veins. He's exactly her type. And it's sickening, because it's not him. He shouldn't have come here. He should have just stayed at home. When he looks back over to the man they're about to question in the holding cell, seeing him stir a bit, he lets out another sigh and turns toward the small table against the wall with a coffee pot sitting on it. He grabs a small styrofoam cup and fills it to the brim.

When Beckett follows the deputy, seeing him turn the blinds closed to the windows of the small conference room, the deputy quickly finds her in the doorway, looking over the room with a seriousness in her brow. She can see him approach her out of the corner of her eye. "I-I'm uh... I hope I'm not being too forward, Detective." He says and follows her as she moves out of the doorway and back out into the office space. The deputy stops in front of her with a smile, "but maybe I could show you around town. Introduce you to some people who knew Claire."

She feels a mix of annoyance, flattery, and guilt shove its way into her blood, feeling a quick smile flash onto her face.

And Castle is watching from across the office as she does. She never smiled like that at him when they first met, or even their first few years working together. It was always just annoyed eye rolls, frustrated head shakes, and backhanded insults, calling him childish and hairbrained. He knows full well how much she hated him when they first met. And this sight is making his stomach turn to a rock. Three minutes and this stranger is making more progress with her than he has in four years.

But Beckett is trying to get him to stop as quick as she can. "I'm... flattered, deputy, but my partner and I are trying to get this case closed and get back home, so I'm gonna pass."

The smile is whipped off the deputy's face in a flash as his eyes go back over to Castle. She follows his eyes and sees Castle look down into a styrofoam cup with steam rising from it. "I'll go wake up our friend then."

When she comes back up to Castle, she isn't given a chance to explain before his voice is spitting cold venom at her. "So, when's the wedding?" He asks with a lift of his brow.

Her mental filter degrades, "Castle, will you lighten up? How loose do you think I am?" She spits back, her brow lowered in frustration with him. How much more does she have to do? His expression falls slightly, being taken aback by her reaction. "He's not even my type anyway." _You are,_ she thinks to herself, being kept behind her mental filter.

When she shakes her head slightly and looks away, standing next to him, he lets out a small sigh. "Well, I guess you _can_ blame a guy for trying." He says and looks back over to her with a soft smirk.

She meets his eyes and is quickly overtaken by a bright smile and a fit of silent giggles.

And Castle can't stop the swarm of butterflies breaking up the knot in his stomach when he sees it.

* * *

After a few minutes, the victim's partner is sat down in the conference room, and Castle and Beckett let him stir for a few more minutes before opening the door. He looks up with a tired, half-lidded gaze over heavily bagged eyes. "I'm Detective Kate Beckett with the NYPD, and this is my partner, Richard Castle." Beckett says as they both pull out chairs across from him.

Castle sets the coffee in front of him as he sits down, seeing the man look at him with a wondering expression. "Richard Castle as in 'Derrick Storm', Richard Castle?"

"Yeah, that's me." He says and leans back.

He nods, and grabs the cup in front of him, groggy. "I used to read those books. I've always wondered why you killed him off." He says with a slight slur just before he takes a quick sip of the sobering liquid.

"So..." Castle starts and leans forward on his arms, "your actual... legal name is John Doe?"

John groans in annoyance and rolls his head around, setting the cup back down. "Ugh... yes, my actual legally given name is John Doe. My family tree goes back to John Aldon on my mother's side. So, as you can imagine, 'John' occupies a lot of the branches." He says emotionlessly.

Beckett nods and opens the case file. "So... we're here to talk to you about Claire Daniels."

John's face is pulled into sadness as his shoulders sink. He doesn't respond and doesn't look up.

"We..." Castle begins, "hear that you two had a bit of a thing for each other."

John's shoulders jump slightly when he lets out a short chuckle. "Maybe in another life, but uh... no." He says and shakes his head, then looks up and nods his head toward the door to the room, "Despite what Smallville out there tells you, Claire and I were just partners. We weren't seeing each other." He says, another wave of sadness pulling his features down as he slunks down in his chair.

"So, I assume you know about Claire's death, then." Beckett says, folding her hands together on the table.

John nods in a small motion, not looking up to them. "I know. And," He says, lifting his hand to her, "before you accuse me, I've been overseas for the past eight months. I just got back two days ago and was held up at JFK all night by the TSA. They like to harass me every chance they get because of my name. And getting off a plane from Pakistan as John Doe tends to raise a few eyebrows in a few cubicles at the State Department. You can check with them, I didn't kill her."

Beckett nods, believing his story. "What can you tell us about Claire?"

John shrugs his shoulders a bit, still not meeting their eyes. "She was the best investigative reporter I've ever worked with."

"You an investigative reporter too?" Castle asks.

But John shakes his head, briefly looking up to meet Castle's eyes. "Claire was the investigator, I was just the guy who put everything into words for her. But... she was strong, fierce, dedicated..."

"You were in love with her, weren't you?" Castle asks.

Beckett's heart jumps into her throat, her eyes whipping over to Castle just before she looks back over and sees John look up to him with a deep sullen pull and a sharp pain in his eyes. John looks back down to the floor as he sinks deeper into his chair. "Madly."

Castle's heart goes out to him. He knows this kind of sadness, not to this extent but... he knows how it feels. "What happened?" Castle asks.

John lets out a small sigh and pushes himself up in his chair. "We were partners for a few years, and... after a while, I started to feel something deeper for her. I've always had a thing for firebrands, and Claire was always so unwavering in the face of overwhelming odds. She had a graceful strength that I came to admire, but... with that strength came the need to bury everything that she felt made her look weak. She always felt the need to swallow all of her vulnerabilities, and... in the kind of relationship we both knew I wanted, that couldn't happen. I mean, I was the first person she'd call if she got a hot lead on a story, but the last person she'd call if she was having trouble sleeping."

Castle feels his heart tug, John's story is hitting him in a familiar place.

And Kate can feel her heart twist, looking at this man's pain. "Did anything ever happen in Claire's life that may explain her behavior recently?" She asks.

"Claire's father was killed in a hit-and-run five years ago. Her and her father were about as close as a father and daughter could get, so... it hit her pretty hard. It would have been a random occurrence if she hadn't found out that the traffic cameras had been down for a system upgrade the day it happened and the guy was never caught. She thought that it couldn't have been a coincidence and she threw herself into investigating his death. Everyone told her to let it go, but..."

"You offered to help her." Castle finishes for him.

John nods again sadly. "I wanted to help her get closure. And after a few years of helping her and getting nowhere, I told her that it might be best to start accepting the fact that whoever killed her father may never be caught... which she took pretty hard. We didn't speak to each other for a few months after that. And when she came back about two years ago, she told me in a matter of subtext that she couldn't be with me until she moved passed her father's death and asked me to wait for her until she did. We always had a problem talking directly to each other... and it drove us both crazy."

Both Castle and Beckett can feel their hearts jump in their chests, looking at each other through the side of their eyes.

After a long moment, John continues. "So... because I loved her, I waited for that day to come. And after a year of waiting for her to be ready, I started to realize that I was waiting for something that was never gonna happen, so... I decided to cut my losses, swallow my pride, and leave. She was always so caught up in things that she never saw that I was standing right in front of her all that time. But it's probably my fault for... not just coming out and telling her how I felt, but... I knew if I did, it would send her running. So I had to wait for the day when she would give me a chance... which I realized would never come."

Castle feels his heart harden as John tells his story, feeling the coldness he put over himself when all this started come back.

"I signed up to be a war correspondent after that. I figured dying in a war was better than dying waiting around for her to see something that she wasn't looking for. I've been in Afghanistan for the past eight months, just got back two nights ago. When I heard about Claire's death..." He says with a shake in his voice, "I went to the bar... where these clowns decide to arrest me for getting thrown out."

Castle and Beckett are both at a conflict and a loss for words as the man's sorrow slowly floods to the surface, his eyes starting to brim and his lips quiver.

He looks up to them with red eyes, looking between them. "Why couldn't she just see me?" He asks in a soiled voice. "I was _right there._ "

Beckett swallows thickly as she looks back down to the case file.

* * *

 _A/N: I hope John's character and dialogue came through clear, that you feel the connection he had with the victim and what he felt for her. I had the direction in my head but felt I was having trouble with the flow of the conversation as I was writing it. Let me know. :)_


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: Hope you guys like this chapter. I liked writing it. And yes, I know... I know that a direct conversation would be great between these two. But since when is that not OOC for them? This is Caskett we're talking about, here. I'm getting to it though. Enjoy the chapter and let me know. :)_

* * *

The two are dead silent on the short trip over to the victim's office, having just left John in the conference room of the sheriff's office holding back sobs.

Castle is conflicted, again, so much so that his head is starting to hurt. He doesn't want to end up like that. And he is still madly in love with her, much to his chagrin. And it's easy to tell himself that it's more than he's ever felt for anyone else in the moment. It always feels that way when you're in love. But what he can't deny is he's never had to fight it this much, or fight for it this much. He decided just a week ago that she'll never be willing to take that risk, so it was best to move on. And now that she's pulled him back in, he doesn't want to admit that it's because he was wrong.

But why keep him waiting for this long, and for what? He had intended to use this trip to say goodbye to her and explain that he wanted to move on while he had a chance. And he's no closer to doing that than when he walked out of the loft. His hopeful nature has led to his downfall before, and it would be easy to just shake all of his doubt and over-analytical thinking in lieu of just waiting for that day to come. But how much of his life will he have to waste waiting to start one with her?

And Beckett feels an intense twist in her gut as she pulls to a stop on the curb outside a two-story building, where the victim's office is on the second floor. They need to talk this out. She saw the results of what keeping Castle waiting were. They need to do this, and she needs to tell him the truth. She realizes now that the idea of keeping it from him forever and pretending like she really doesn't remember was a mistake.

She chances a glance in his direction as he's whipping off his seatbelt and opening his door. When she steps out into the brisk sunlight of the midday, she ignores everything physically telling her not to continue and pushes forward, following him toward the door of the building. "So," She begins, putting her hands in her pockets as he pulls the door open for her, "why _did_ you kill off Derrick Storm?" She grits her teeth to herself, silently scolding herself for asking such an unrelated question.

But he just shrugs his shoulders as they move side by side down the hall and toward a set of stairs. "Writing Derrick Storm... it became a chore. There was nothing left for the character to me. He was just boring to me."

"Really?" She asks, honestly intrigued. "But you had to kill him off? I mean... you couldn't have, like... had him retire, give him a _happy_ ending?"

"Well," Castle says and starts up the stairs behind her, "I guess I needed a way to make sure Gina didn't bug me for another book I just killed him off."

She lets out a small chuckle and continues up the stairs. After a minute, they're standing at a door with yellow crime scene tape going in an 'x' over it. She rips the tape down and uses the key she was provided with to open the door. She leaves the door ajar and takes a few steps inside, pulling out two pairs of nitrile gloves from her pocket and hands one set to Castle, whose standing by her side, looking across the expanse of the office.

It's a relatively large office, with a small grey couch underneath two tall, shaded windows. There's a large desk on the far wall of the office, with a large monitor sitting off to the side at an angle and a hall going back to the right. The first thing Castle notices are the lack of pictures or commendations. She was a well-known, award-winning journalist. But she doesn't have any of that on display. Tugging the thin blue gloves onto his hands, he takes a step forward but stops when he hears his foot scrape against something on the ground. He looks down and picks up the large stack of letters, deciding to go through them.

And Beckett, looking over at him and continuing across the office, decides to just get the ball rolling. "So," She calls and looks down to the desk, picking up a random stack of papers, "what'd you think of the partner?"

Castle tosses the mail after only being halfway through and not finding anything down onto the small table next to the door. He then turns to go to a large file cabinet against the right wall next to the hall. "What do you mean?" He asks, not really feeling in a place that he can stand talking about this yet.

"Well, that he was in love with the victim." She says and pulls open one of the top drawers, pulling out a stack of photos. She must've not liked to think about her past if she's keeping things like this out of sight. "How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch, I guess."

Beckett's throat closes as the next words form on her lips, "Hard to imagine they were partners for that long and nothing ever came of it, huh?" She wants to slap herself for feigning casualness in her tone.

Castle wants to roll his eyes, knowing they're falling into yet another pitfall of minced words and subtext. And he doesn't know how much longer he can hold back. "Well, Claire profiles as being emotionally disconnected a bit."

Beckett feels her heart crack at his cold words. "What, you really believed John when he said that she couldn't let her own partner see her at her low points?"

Castle pulls out another file and starts to flip through the papers inside. "Maybe not of her own volition, no."

He's not making this easy. Beckett flips through the photos a bit mindlessly until one catches her attention. She sets it aside and goes through the others. "He seemed pretty broken up."

"Well, when someone you love is adamant not to love you back, it tends to get tiring after a while." He says just as he's closing the drawer.

 _I love you, "_ Well..." She says with her heart palpitating in her chest, "is that really why you think he decided to leave?"

Castle, not knowing how much longer he can stand talking in this code they always talk in, pulls open another drawer of the file cabinet. "It's hard to tell, really." He says, hoping it will cut off the conversation there.

Beckett nods, puts the photos back in the drawer save for the one that caught her attention. She then scans the office once more until a bulletin board, hidden in the dark corner of the office jumps out at her. She leans over and flicks on the light and her chest squeezes. "Castle."

Castle looks over to her, seeing her eyes hardened toward a small bulletin board hanging on the wall, with red yarn tied in lines from picture to note card. He moves over to her, stepping up to her side, his body jumping slightly when he feels his arm brush against hers. "What's this?"

She takes a step forward, her eyes quickly scanning the information on the board. "She was investigating her father's death."

He takes quick note of the pictures on the board before his eyes go down to her. "What she getting anywhere?" He asks, being semi-honest in his curiosity.

She looks up at him with an arched brow, holding his soft, wondering gaze for a long moment, knowing she's getting lost in those piercing baby blues. She shakes her head after the moment has passed, looking down to the buttons on his shirt before looking back over to the board. "No, it uh... it doesn't really look like it."

Castle lets out a small sigh and looks back out to the office as she steps away from him, watching out of the corner of his eye her reaching up to the board. Deciding that the moment has passed and that it's probably for the better, he moves back to the other side of the office, picking up the mail to see if he can get something else.

But Beckett is standing in front of this board, pictures of different locations, a car crash, what looks like a government building with a notecard underneath reading 'councilmen?', and a few other things, but all she can see is her shutter-shade murder board back in New York. She told him that she couldn't have the relationship she wants until she closes her mother's murder. "So, you..." She says, looking over to Castle, who's back near the door sifting through the mail, "you think that this is what had her acting strange recently... like her co-workers said?"

"Well," Castle says in a casual tone, looking up with letters in his hands as he motions toward her, "John did say that she took it pretty hard when he told her to let it go, so..." he says and looks back down to the letters in his hands, "she probably obsessed over it more than she should have."

Beckett nods, moving back toward the desk on weak legs. "Well, she did tell him that she needed to give it time until she could close it, so... maybe it wasn't about him."

His fingers press against each other through the letters in his hands, "And maybe that's why he left."

"Well... maybe she'd never been in that serious of a relationship before and wouldn't want to let those things get in the way." She says with the knot in her stomach tightening even tighter.

Tossing the rest of the letters down and deciding to tear the only one open that doesn't have a return address on it, he continues. "Maybe he had to watch other guys get to be with her with so little effort and he realized that she just didn't want him."

His words send another violent, heartbreaking crack through her system, almost making her fold in on herself. But she remains stoic, facing away from him. "He didn't know what she was thinking."

"What about what he was thinking?"

"He probably thought that leaving her might teach her some sort of lesson."

"Which wouldn't have been the case if she'd just given him a chance." He says through gritted teeth.

"Well, maybe she just needed a little more proof that he wasn't going to leave like everyone else did." She says openly and turning to face him.

But with that, Castle's last synapse of control breaks. "After _everything_ they've been through, how much more proof did she need?!"

Beckett is stunned silent at the fire, the twinge of heartbreak and anger in his voice, the blatant emotion radiating in his eyes as they bore into her from across the space of the office. Her brow is furrowing, her body feels weak, her heart is in her throat, and she feels the words blown out of her mind. She watches, his lips tighten back up and he looks back down to the letter in his hands. After a tense moment, he tears the envelope open and tugs out a piece of paper.

"The simple fact is that if she didn't trust him enough with her heart then, then she never would have." She feels her heart sink as she swallows thickly, letting her eyes drift shut and turns back around. She pushed him this far away, he's been holding this in, and now she doesn't know how telling him how she truly feels will change anything.

"I guess you're right." She says, trying to harden herself and shore up her emotions as she takes the picture in her hands. It's a picture that might lead somewhere. It's one of the victim and a man that resembles the man pictured as her father on the board hanging on the wall. He's standing next to her in a large, open field, with headphones on and safety glasses. Her father is pointing with his hand as Claire is holding a large revolver in her hands, which she's holding with her right hand. Her father must have taught her how to shoot with her right hand, even though she was left-handed.

"I'm realizing too late that what I felt for you was love."

His voice cuts into her, sending a wave of nerves to stand up on end at his words. She whips around and sees him looking down to a piece of paper. "What?" She asks in a light voice.

He looks up at her with a sad arch in his brow, lifting the paper up to her. He looks back down to it and continues. "I don't know why I'm writing this." He starts and she feels her feet carry her over to him at a slow pace. "I don't really know what it is I'm supposed to say. Words were always your niche, not mine."

She's at his side as he finishes, the paper trembling in his grasp. She slips it out of his hand and continues where he left off. "A few months after you left, I went to look for you, but found out that I couldn't get to you. Everyone that I've talked to said you're not coming back. Your place was empty and your phone had been shut off, like you knew I would come looking for you. So, if one day, you do come back, I'm sending this to the one place I know you'll look for me. Because, if I'm being honest, you're the only person I care that hears this. I..." She feels her throat close as the next sentence reads in her mind, "I don't even have a picture of us together to imagine what it would be like."

They were wrong.

She feels her muscles tremble again, another cold shiver going through her blood before she continues. "I'm realizing too late that what I felt for you was love. I asked you to wait for me... until I was ready. I never imagined you'd leave. I guess because you were always there. You're not there anymore, and it's time to admit that you never will be again because of me. If, someday, you find this... know that it's not your fault and that it was me who pushed you away and let you slip away... and know that I did love you... with all my heart."

Castle feels his heart sink in his chest while those last words tumble from her lips. This is going to devastate that man. "But we both said that she wouldn't have killed herself. She..." Castle argues, briefly shaking his head to rid himself of the last vestiges of emotion, "she was left-handed. See," He says and points at the letter, "you can see the slight smear in the ink."

Beckett lifts the photo in her other hand up to her, "I found this."

Castle takes the photo, looking at the father and daughter, him looking like he's teaching her how to shoot. He looks up at her with an arched brow.

"Look at which hand she's holding the gun in."

The pair both let themselves sink downward in defeat. "We were wrong."

"She did kill herself."

Castle can see the disbelief and sad shock wash over her features. And he can see something in her eyes that he doesn't see very often. He can see her vulnerability. He pushes out another soft sigh and reaches up, placing his hand on her arm with his thumb gently petting her in a slow, loving motion. Her eyes drift shut after a moment as he feels more weight being applied to his grasp, feeling her lean into his touch a bit. It's another moment before he sees her reach up and cover his hand with hers, keeping his hand from pulling away.

"I'm sorry." He says in a soft voice.

"No..." She says with a slow shake of her head. She opens her eyes and looks over at him. " _I'm_ sorry."


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: Geez, no one ever taught you trolls about patience? Of course not, you're trolls. Don't you guys belong stuck over the erasers of pencils?_

* * *

"I assure you, Detective Beckett. Deputy Monroe _and_ his little cohort down at The Thick Smoke will both face consequences for what they've done. We respect all our resident's Constitutional rights, even visitors." The sheriff says from behind his desk, eyeing the same deputy who hit on her earlier that morning. "We'll see to it that Mr. Doe is released and given a full apology."

"Thank you for your cooperation, Sheriff." Beckett nods with a professional smile, turning around on her heel, eyeing the deputy whose hanging his head in shame, and heading out of the sheriff's office and out toward the door.

Castle spots John in a chair in the conference room, where they just showed him the letter they had found in Claire's office. John couldn't read it all the way through before he succumbed to his tears and broke down. It's hitting him in a place in the center of his heart that is driving him toward opening up, cracking this shield he'd put over himself. He doesn't want to be that in a year. When he sees Beckett stride out of the sheriff's office, he looks up with a soft smile, matching the one she's looking at him with.

"So, you let them have it?"

"Me _and_ the sheriff. Monroe and the bartender will both face consequences for what they did, assuming that John killed Claire."

After a quick stop at the bar John was thrown out of the night before, Beckett quickly got it out of the bartender, who knew Claire growing up, that he'd confronted John when he came in and ordered a drink. The bartender had served him before calling the deputy, whom he was also friends with, and agreed to get him thrown out for a bogus argument that was completely one-sided on the bartender's part, where deputy Monroe was waiting with a pair of handcuffs to wrongfully arrest him, on the false assumption that he'd killed Claire when he suddenly reappeared in town.

Castle lets out a long sigh, as if to expel all his newfound distance and hesitancy in one simple breath and pushes open the front door, holding it until she passes through. "It's tragic... what happened to them."

"Yeah." She responds as she waits for him to step up next to her and fall into step. "Yeah, it is." She says, moving toward the car. Her heart pushing her is fighting against her reptilian brain, telling her to fear it, to run in a panic and just go about as normal. She doesn't want normal anymore. "Do you think he'll ever come back from it?"

"Well, it might haunt him for the rest of his life... thinking about what they could have had together." He says as he pulls open the door and stops.

"Yeah," She answers and pulls her own door open. "It-" She cuts herself off, her throat closing shut. But she hardens her resolve and looks up at him again. "It kinda makes you think... about things."

Castle meets her gaze from over the roof of the car, getting trapped in the riptide of their eyes as the air between them grows thick. "Yeah, it does."

She can tell, it's in their eyes, like it always is when they're staring at each other like this. She can almost physically feel their connection. Her heart is starting to pound harder, she's starting to feel less and less of her weight, her limbs are starting to feel weak, and she can't for the life of her can't look away from his eyes. But after a long moment, she feels herself jolt and cracks a smile. "We should probably uh... get going."

He smiles sheepishly and nods, plopping himself down into the passenger seat just as she's turning the key in the ignition. They're down the road just after two o'clock and with a quick phone call to Alexis, letting her know that he'll be home by that night, they fall into a comfortable silence.

Or what would be a comfortable silence if she weren't fighting for something meaningful to say. They got into a bit of an argument back at the office. Not directly, no, but it was an argument about their relationship. She knows that. She got a glimpse into his emotions, his pain that he's been feeling, what keeping him waiting has done to him, what not being with him and being with someone else has done to him. But despite all that, even knowing that she was with Josh, he still loved her. She hopes.

And when that thought stings itself into her mind, she blurts it out. "You know, I wasn't happy with Josh." She bleats in a quick voice.

Castle whips over to look at her with a bit of a stunned expression, "I'm sorry?"

Beckett looks over to him, doing a quick double-take before she focuses on the road again. "Josh... when we were together, it..." She struggles to explain.

"Beckett, you don't have to-"

"No, I-I... I want to." She says, cutting him off and pushing herself forward.

But Castle doesn't like to think about that time. Knowing that she would be getting out of bed every morning with someone else in it that's not him, someone else getting to kiss her, wrap their arms around her, make love to her, it makes him feel terminal. So now, he just has to grit his teeth against it and trudge through it. He lets out a small sigh and nods, letting her continue.

She lets herself take a breath, knowing full well what he thinks of Josh. "When Josh and I started seeing each other... he had it in his head that I wanted it to be serious, but... I-I didn't, so... we didn't even start off on the same foot."

He can't get those images out of his head. The thought of her kissing someone else, being in someone else's arms, it's making his heart violently fold in on itself. And what's worse is he knows he has no real claim over her, no real reason to be this possessive. But he is.

"And I didn't exactly make it a secret that I wasn't satisfied with our relationship."

"Well, you weren't exactly forthcoming about it either." He says casually, looking back over to her.

"Well, no, but... when he canceled his trip, I... guess I convinced myself that that meant we could give it another shot and that we could be a bit more serious, but..." She lets her hairbrained explanation fall flat after a moment.

"Then Montgomery dies and your... yeah, I get it."

She rolls her eyes to herself, being reminded that she has to tell him about her shooting. "Well, Castle, Josh just wasn't _it_ for me. You... you were right, I didn't love him. It was just... plain... between us. Just boring."

Castle nods, but feels another twinge of pain. "That's why I broke it off with Gina." He outwardly thinks.

She looks over to him, a slightly raised brow. "Really?"

"Yeah, well... Gina and I were always kinda boring, but it was better than being alone for the rest of my life." He says, his tone shifting to deprecate himself.

"Is..." She says, not wanting to hurt him too badly, "is that what you really thought was gonna happen?"

"It's always been a fear." He says, looking out the window and shrugging his shoulders.

"So, you weren't in love with Gina either?"

"Well, I can't exactly say that." He says, looking forward. "I mean, all I had at the time was Alexis and she spent most of her time at school. The rest of the time, I was... entertaining. But with Gina, she was _different,_ just not... unique. But still, it was better than being alone, so despite us not really being in love, I proposed to her."

"If you didn't love her, then why'd you propose?"

"I can't say I didn't _love her_ love her, but I enjoyed being with someone _real_ a lot more than I enjoyed being alone."

"Oh." She says after a moment. "How'd you do it?" She asks with a casual shrug of her shoulders.

"Hot air balloon."

"Ah," She says with a knowing smile, "that's... romantic, I guess."

Castle lets out a bit of a hearty chuckle, "Trust me, I wasn't trying to be romantic."

"Then why'd you use a hot air balloon?" She asks with a smile.

"Because she was _deathly_ afraid of heights and I knew that if I proposed a thousand feet off the ground, she wouldn't be in her right mind and say yes."

She feels her heart tug at that, being shown a small glimpse into his insecurities. "You... you didn't think she'd say yes?"

"Well, neither of us really... 'felt the magic'," he says using air quotes, "but I thought that it was better than nothing, and that maybe it would get better if we got married. Needless to say, it didn't."

Felt the magic... those words are floating around in her mind, thinking back to just an hour ago, when she felt she couldn't look away from his eyes, being ensnared into his trap. "And... when you got back together."

"You- it..." He stutters, quickly course correcting and turning to look back out the window.

"What?" She asks after she sees him not moving to give her an answer after his misstep.

He lets out a sigh, his heart telling him that she's not ready, but wanting to just get it out. "I knew I was acting insane by inviting you up to the Hampton's when I did, especially when you were seeing someone, and I just... needed someone that I had some sort of foundation with." He says, another sharp sting twinging his veins tightly at the memory of Demming.

She can see when she takes another look over to him, the dark hopeless lull in his eyes. There's a plain sign flashing her in the face, the sight of his expression as he looks seemingly lost in memory, that they're never going to happen. Now, more than ever, she needs to be brutally honest for both their sakes. "We never were very good at the timing, were we?" She asks in a low voice.

His heart quickly goes into his throat, knowing they're about to start speaking directly to each other. He swallows passed the lump and looks down to his lap. "It's felt like it's never going to happen a lot." He says in a hesitant voice, afraid to speak. "More than my hopeful nature will allow me to admit."

"Well," She says in a soft voice, just starting to get into the city limits, "I told you about... about that wall."

"That wall wasn't there for anyone but me, Beckett." He hisses through clenched teeth, not being able to hold the thought back.

"You don't know that, Castle." She argues back.

"Yes I do, Kate." He says, not taking it. "You gave everyone who came by a chance except me. You gave them a chance to be that for you, but they weren't."

She feels her eyes burn and her heart squeeze, a tight mixture of guilt, pain, frustration, and longing colliding in her system. "Maybe because I knew what it would be if I did."

"You've kept me waiting this long, Beckett, so at this point, I don't know what else I have to do to prove myself."

"It's _not..._ about you." She says in a hushed tone. "Castle, we're _partners."_ She tells him, looking over to him as they begin over the bridge, seeing him still look stoically out the window. "I trust you to have my back on a daily basis. And you've... found your way around that wall before... like no one else has. I may have been with someone else, but if you're trying to say that I was intentionally trying to hurt you by being with Josh or anyone else, then-"

"I never said that." He interupts, lifting his hand at her.

"Then what-"

"You couldn't know it hurt me because you couldn't even _see_ me, Beckett." He says in a raised voice. She feels her heart start to sink as she listens to him shift himself in his seat. "It's just like John said with Claire. He left because she never bothered to open her eyes see him. So... you know, you're right, it may _not_ be all about me, and for a while, I was okay with that. I accepted that you just had to work through some things and sort some things out, but..." After a shake of his head, he looks back out his window as they enter the city, "now I'm not so sure."

She drives silently, taking a turn and parking along the curb outside of Remy's. "You're not so sure." She states plainly.

All he answers with is a small sigh out through his nose when she turns off the ignition.

"That's why you said you wanted to focus on writing, isn't it?" She asks him, eyes boring into her steering wheel, gripping it with a white-knuckled grip, her hands squeaking as they squeeze. "Because you thought you were waiting for something that was never gonna happen."

"I don't know what else I have to do, so-"

"What about what _I_ have to do, Rick?" She asks, snapping her head over to him.

He steels himself and looks over to her with a deep furrow in his brow.

"Did you ever think that maybe what I wanted for us would be something I wouldn't want to let anything stand in the way of?" She asks in a desperate tone, letting her arms fall down to her lap. "You don't have to prove yourself to me, Castle. I had to prove to myself that I could go into something with someone with both feet... and I was waiting because I wanted that someone to be you."

He feels his heart squeeze inside his chest again. She's being far too honest to toss her off. "What are we doing here?" He asks, looking out his window again.

"I'm buying you dinner." She explains and unclips her seatbelt. "Sans the car crash, that is."


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Most of you said you were along for the ride, so... enjoy the ride. I've had the next chapter in my head for a while. Originally had it ending much differently than I do now. But I do hope you guys like this. And as to the criticisms I received on Beckett the last chapter... yes... you're right. She's not making much sense. When has Beckett ever been very good at expressing her emotions as honestly as Castle? ;)_

* * *

"So," Castle begins, picking meagerly at his fries, "where are we at here?"

Kate takes the last bite of her burger, ravenous after not getting a chance to eat all day. "Well," She pauses, wiping the corners of her mouth as she swallows. She puts her napkin back down into her lap and leans forward, her shoulders curled in nervously. "I-I... I'm not sure... exactly."

Castle sighs before sucking the last bits of melted ice in the bottom of his cup through his straw. There just seem like there are too many weeds and thickets to cut through to get to the other side. Or maybe he's been stuck in a will-o'-the-wisp situation these past four years, that she's just some beautiful light luring him into the woods to leave him stranded to his fate. He tucks that away in his mind, reminding himself to write it down.

But when she notices his sullen features on his face as he looks down to his empty tray, something inside her snaps. "Do you still want this to happen?" She half-way pleads.

His eyes snap up to her, widened with shock at her sudden direct question. He knows he's feeling downtrodden and loathsome about their relationship as of late, but above it all, he loves her. "Yeah."

"Castle, I-I..." She trails off on a sigh, leaning forward by taking her napkin off her lap, tossing it in her red plastic basket and shoving it off to the side. She's never been good at honestly explaining her emotions and feelings. Burke's helped her a little, but she's had to do most of the work on her own. This is the first time her progress has ever really been put to the test, and it's more tiring than she could have anticipated. "I-I... wish that the past just... didn't matter this much."

Castle tosses himself back in the booth and feels himself soften. "Me too."

"But... I'd be sounding pretty hypocritical if I were to say that it didn't, wouldn't I?"

"Well... far be it from me to insult you like that, but... you've let the wake control which way the boat steers more than you should."

She smiles softly, her body jumping slightly as she chuckles. "No, you're right."

Castle sighs, the brief lighthearted moment quickly passing. He can feel his heart quickly hardening back up, and his attack is coming out before he can stop it. "Do you've any idea how much it hurt seeing you with Josh... or with Demming?"

Beckett feels her heart constrict like his words are snaking themselves around it and squeezing the life out of her. "Probably about as much as it hurt seeing you with Gina... or with any of those other..." She says, rolling her eyes while leaning back in her side of the booth, "mindless bimbos that are constantly throwing themselves at you."

Castle feels his teeth grit at her words. "Look, I'm not going to pretend that I'm the same kind of man that you met four years ago. I'm not. If nothing else, working with you and being your glorified coffee jerk has taught me a lot."

Her brow hardens instantly when his words come at her, "Glorified-"

"And when I saw you with Demming, you clearly didn't need me around anymore, so... so yeah, I went back to Gina as... as a failsafe."

"Castle, why would you think that?" She asks in a voice desperate for answers.

"What else was I supposed to think, Kate? I'd been there for two years and you could barely crack a smile around me."

"That's not-"

"Demming comes around for five minutes and you're running after him like you're about to be cast in Titanic together."

"Castle, I broke up with Demming because I wanted to go with you." She says quickly and strongly, not letting him cut her off again.

Castle's brow carefully knits, eyes narrowing slightly at her admission. "Come again?"

"I-I..." She says, leaning back and picking her fingernails. "I was blind, okay?" She says, looking up at him while keeping her neck craned. "And... it's like you said, Claire realized what she had a shot at too late. Because the truth is, Castle... if I didn't know you were with Gina, I _never_ would have started seeing Josh."

"Then why did you?" He asks in a held back, hushed voice.

She rolls her eyes again, her heart pulling in on itself. "I-I just... wanted to be with someone, even if it was casual and it didn't really spark anything. And... at the end of the day... that's why I've been afraid."

Castle closes his eyes and shakes his head, leaning his head forward afterward, "I'm still not getting it, why?"

Beckett swallows passed her thumping heart and pushes herself to continue. "Because I knew that being with Josh... or Demming... or even Sorenson meant that I wouldn't have to... put anything forward. That I could just say yes and that would be the end of it. That they wouldn't push me for more or poke me to open up or... expect me to depend on them. Because I didn't. So, you were right that night. When you said that I hid in relationships... you were right. Just... using them as an excuse not to move on with my life."

"And..." He begins, his emotional shield beginning to rent against her violent onslaught of honesty, "that was different with me because..."

"Because you've been poking me since the day we met." She says and looks up to him with a soft, sad smile. "You've always pushed me when I stopped believing in myself and... in the back of my mind, I knew that if I were to give us a shot, that it would mean I would have to... start finding out what it's like to be in a relationship where I wasn't hiding from something."

"And... when you broke up with Josh?" He asks hesitantly.

She shakes her head and looks down to her lap again. "Getting shot made me question a lot of things." She says, a violent sting of anxiety hitting her at the thought that she still has to tell him about her shooting. "I had to think of the kind of relationship I truly wanted to be in at the end of my life... and I knew that I wasn't in that kind of relationship with Josh... as much as he wanted to be."

"Kate, if all this is true, why are you still keeping me waiting around?"

She breathes out a humorless chuckle and shakes her head again, "You've no idea how close I've been to giving in to you, Rick."

"What do you mean?" He asks with a crease in his forehead.

"Rick, I've been one second away from kissing you more times than you know. Like... the bank robbery... at my apartment when you dropped off Royal... in LA when we were tracking down who killed Royce..." She lets out another chuckle, thinking back to just last night, the feeling of that secure sanctuary that is his strong arms, "just last night when I was in your arms."

"Really?" He asks with too much of a lift in his voice.

She lets her smile crack fully across her face, hearing his tone life the feel of the conversation. "I've missed more chances than you know about, I guess." She says in a light tone.

He can't swallow the lighthearted chuckle escaping his lungs in time. "I guess so."

Something rises in her chest, words being pushed out, thoughts she can't keep to herself. "And I don't want to miss any more chances, Castle."

He feels himself seize up at the sound of her voice, at her gentle yet struggling admission. He decides to keep quiet and let her continue.

"This case, it... it's got me thinking about a lot of things, seeing someone like Claire realizing too late that she pushed him away for so long until he just left. Well... when you said you wanted to focus on writing, I was faced with the idea of you leaving and... I don't..." She says, struggling to be openly honest with him and brutally honest with herself. "I don't want that to be us."

"And... that's why you asked me to come with you." He says in a soft voice. After she doesn't respond, instead just keeping her gaze down to the table as she leans back in her side of the booth, he continues. "Because you didn't want me to leave."

"I don't want to end up like Claire." She says with a nod before looking up to him with another sad smile. "I don't want to have to imagine what it would be like between us, I... I want to experience it for myself."

He pushes out a small sigh and scoots himself out of the booth and stands up, feeling her eyes on him. He extends his hand to her with a blank expression. He looks down at her with a lifted brow after she looks at him with a curious expression, silently asking him if he's serious. "You said you didn't want to end up like Claire, well it works both ways."

She feels herself pull in her face-splitting smile, reaching up and putting her hand in his. His fingers wrap delicately around her knuckles and he gently tugs her up and out of her seat, looking into his eyes all the while, seeing a soft gleam in his iris. She feels her windpipe tighten when a sudden stab of anxiety hits her. She has to tell him. She thought that they could jump into this and it wouldn't matter, but... Lanie was right. She can't lie to him.

But nonetheless, she revels in the warm tingling sensation that walking hand-in-hand with him out the door is giving her entire body. He smirks over at her one last time before pushing open the door, and she can tell by the look in his eyes that he's just as ready as she is but all too naive to go into it honestly. Her heart is starting to palpitate inside her chest, and coupled with the cold sweat that just broke out across her skin as a soft breeze cuts through the air, when he pulls her to a stop and turns her, feeling his hand reach for her other... she has to tell him.

She lets him take her other hand in his before the words are forcing their way out in a quick barrage. "Can we talk?"

Looking into her eyes, her body feeling pulled toward his, he stops and grins. "Didn't we just do that?"

"Yes- _no..._ it's..." She stutters as she gives his hands a quick squeeze, "it's... something I've been meaning to tell you." She says with a slight shake in her voice, giving away how nervous she is. She opens her mouth again, but her voice only comes out in hesitant scratching, unable to speak. "I-I... I-I..."

"Beckett, what is it?" He says, letting his hands fall until he's just hanging onto her fingers.

She steeles her resolve and looks up to his eyes, hardening her shoulders. He's always been understanding in the past, willing to listen and hear her out. "It's... about... that day in the hospital."

His brow and eyes narrow in wondering, thinking back to what she means. "What, after you woke up from your shooting?"

Her heart shoots up into her throat, knowing he's in that frame of mind now. "Yeah." She says, her hands trembling in his finger's grasp. "When... when I told you t-that I didn't remember..." She trails off again, taking a pause to loosen her throat without success.

His heart thuds against his chest briefly, his body reacting to being caught in the act of something. "Why, did... did you remember something?" He asks, not wanting to hear the answer.

"Well... not... _exactly."_ She says, lifting her shoulders nervously. She watches his expression carefully, knowing he's thinking of those words he said to her that day. "When I told you that... that I didn't remember, I... I lied."

In an instant, everything in him flash freezes; his blood, his nerves, his mind, his heart... everything. "What?"

She can feel his openness shut off in a second, can see the cloudiness in his eyes. "I-I just... when I woke up, everything was-"

"You lied to me?" He asks, dropping her hands and leaning back.

"I-if you'll just let me explain, Castle," She says quickly, lifting her hands out between them. "Everything had just been upended, I was still-"

"You... _lied..._ to me." He says urgently, his eyes angrily narrowing as he leans forward, leering toward her.

"I-I was scared, Castle." She tries to desperately explain, taking a step toward him just as he's turning away from her. "But now that we're going into this-"

"Are you out of your _mind?_ " He spits when he spins back around. She's frozen by his sudden flash of anger and unwillingness to even let her explain. He lets out a short breath before shaking his head and looking away. "I can't be here right now." He says just before moving out into the street and extending his arm, waving down a taxi.

"Castle!" She calls, her legs shaky and unreliable when she goes after him just as a cab is pulling up seconds after he hailed one. "Castle, wait!"

The door slams and she watches, stuck to the ground as it pulls away, his stoic expression facing forward.

When she sees it take a turn a block ahead, turning away from the direction the loft is in, she's softly calling out to him. "But I love you too, Rick."

* * *

 _A/N: I was going to combine this chapter with the next one, but I felt that parcling it up would keep with the pace of the story... yes, the slow, agonizing pace that pisses all you trolls off. You should really stick to your skillset and go bother some goats crossing over that bridge you live under._


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: When I say mid-season 4, I mean roughly around the two-parter. Probably just before, so to answer the few reviews that came in about the time line, no, '47 Seconds' hasn't happened yet. A part of me likes that I'm getting mixed reviews from those on team Castle and from those on team Beckett. Guess I'm hitting a nerve, makes me glad. ;)_

* * *

There's a light buzz of the nightly crowd coming from upstairs, just a small lull of clinking glasses, laughter, and hearty conversation. He steps down the stairs and drifts mindlessly around his desk and pulls open the bottom drawer, grabbing one of the bottles from his private reserve of the stronger stuff that he keeps to himself. When he sets the bottle down to the center of the desk and goes over to the small waist-high cabinet to grab a glass, his eyes find the framed picture he has hanging above it. When he takes the photo in, his heart goes from a rock to a pile of loose gravel.

He takes the large frame in his hand and takes it off the wall, turning and slowly pacing his way back to his desk, where he turns and leans back with his back toward the door to his office. Not taking his eyes off the photo, he sets the glass down next to the bottle and grabs the bottle instead, letting it fall in his hand between his legs.

It's easy to be mad at her when he's not staring at proof at how happy they could be when they forget about everything else. And this is probably the only picture he has of the two of them together. It's a picture of everyone from the precinct on the night he first bought The Old Haunt. Him and Beckett are off to the right of everyone else, he has his arm around her back and she has her's around his shoulders, both smiling without a care in the world.

 _"They say that there are things that are better not remembered."_

Her words that day crash into his mind, making his whole body twist in on itself in an instant. He's been so stupid. He tosses the framed picture down onto his desk next to him and twists the cap off the bottle, not bothering with the glass and just decides to take a long swig, purposefully taking it quick and hard to not let his throat prepare for the burn. After he sloshes it down and sucks his teeth, he looks down to the floor, where his eyes catch their smiles in the photo again. His gut churns again when he takes the frame in his hands.

Carelessly, he tosses the frame over his shoulder where he can hear it clatter against the floor haphazardly just as he takes another burning swig from the bottle in his hands.

And behind him, Beckett jumps at the sound of the clatter, being just two stairs up from the doorway to his office. Freezing her swirling emotions, she takes the last two stairs and quietly as she can and quickly finds the frame laying on the floor, then finds him leaning back against his desk, his back turned toward her as he leans his head back to take a long, careless drink from the bottle in his hands. She pushes out a quiet sigh and bends over, picking the frame up. She can't help but feel the universe telling her something when she sees the glass in the frame is cracked right in between him and her.

"I stood up Josh that night, you know." She says, thinking back to that fun night when he first bought this place.

He jumps at the sound of her voice cutting above the soft buzz of the crowd upstairs, turning and sloshing his equilibrium around in between his ears. His flops around in his chest and his grip on the neck of the bottle tightens. "How'd you know I'd be here?"

Her eyes look up from the photo as she stands just a few feet away from his desk. She looks her usual confident self with her straight brow, her lips in a small frown but with a slightly arched brow. "I know you don't like Alexis to see you when you're upset... and when you're upset, you need a drink and you keep your strongest stuff down here." She tells him, motioning toward his desk with the picture frame in her hand.

She's always smarter than he gives her credit for, and he gives her a lot of credit for it. "Leave me alone, Beckett." He says and turns back around, pacing away from her as he takes another small, careless drink from the bottle.

His words sting, but she tries her hardest to remain steadfast. She knew she'd have to go up against this when she decided to go after him. "No." She rejects him in an untrustworthy voice.

He grits his teeth, knowing that her mind is made up on this issue. And when her mind is made up, nothing short of a bullet is going to change it. Obviously... not even that.

When he doesn't move to respond, she pushes him again. "We need to talk about this, Castle." She says, putting the frame back onto his desk with a small toss through the air. "Not in code, no subtext, no minced words, just... talk directly." She sees the bottle twist against his thigh as his head hangs. "Like we always should have."

His neck flexes and he stands up, taking one last drink before setting the bottle down beside him with a low thud. "There are things... better not remembered." He says in a held back voice. He turns and stares her down. "That's what you said that day in the hospital."

Her mouth closes, remembering her words from that day.

"You weren't talking about being shot, were you?"

She takes a pause, recalling the soft, almost scared tone he said those words to her in. "No." He tenses his jaw and turns away from her, taking the bottle in his hand and taking another long, quick drink, bracing himself against the burn of the alcohol. "Are we gonna talk about this or not?"

He turns back around on a shifting equilibrium and sets the bottle down on his desk, speaking in a hoarse voice. "Fine." He says and looks up at her again. He sees that she's determined, and the only way to get her to leave is to be honest with her. Again. "I feel stupid, Kate."

She wants to ask him why, be soft with him, but her heart, for some reason, won't let her be that tender.

"All this time, I thought that you were just blind... and all I had to do was wait for the day when you opened your eyes and saw me. Because after all, you didn't know how I felt about you. You didn't know why I stuck around so long. So I thought that all I had to do was wait for the stars to align so you could finally see what's been standing right in front of you. And that when that day came, it would change our lives forever... and change it for the better." His brow is lifted a bit, and his words are pounding her in her heart. "But that wasn't it." He continues with narrowed eyes. "You _knew..._ how I felt about you. So, it's not that you've just been blind and all I had to do was wait for you to start seeing me. It's that you _did_ see... but you looked away anyway."

She can feel her eyes burn but wills the tears not to fall by tensing her throat and gritting her teeth. "Castle..."

"You _chose..._ to look away, Kate. You knew that I was standing here waiting for you, but you kept me away _despite_ knowing that I loved you. You've always kept me at as long of an arm's length as you could manage and I knew nothing was going to change after that day because, for all you knew, you didn't know how I felt about you. But all this time... you _did_ know how I felt about you. You _knew_ that I was in love with you but you still pushed me away. You lied to me and pretended like those words never happened because, at the end of the day, they meant nothing to you. And I feel stupid... because that's not supposed to be who you are."

She can feel it falling apart, just like her heart. They were almost there, she almost had it.

"But now, I'm starting to see that's _exactly_ who you are."

When he turns away from her again, sliding the bottle off the desk in his hand and moving to take another swig, she feels a fight fire in her. "My whole life had just been turned upside down, Castle." She says just as he's letting his arm fall. "So yes, when I heard you tell me how you felt, I had to wake up and face the reality that we weren't just partners. And you put that on top of just losing the man who mentored me, don't you think it's at least understandable why I just needed time to deal with it?"

"No." He says and quickly turns back to face her, lips thin and brow raised, gaze half-lidded. "I don't understand it, Kate. Because you could have just said that. You could have just told me that you needed time to deal with it, but you didn't. You pretended like it never happened and ran away. And at the end of the day, that tells me that you just don't care that much about me."

His words are hitting her, and she's reacting quickly. "Is that the way you have it in your head, Castle?" She says and takes a step closer to him, still being separated by his desk. "That I _don't_ care about you?" He just shakes his head and looks away. "What the hell do you think you are to me, Castle? Just some gopher I keep around so I don't have to buy my own coffee? If that's all you were to me, I wouldn't have been waiting like I have been."

"You _haven't_ been waiting, Kate." He says, spinning back around and leaning over the desk. "You've been stalling."

"Castle, I would lose everyone else in my life before I ever lost you. And I was waiting until we could get it right so I wouldn't have to lose you too because I _do_ care about you. If you telling me that you loved me didn't mean anything, then why do you think I came back for you?"

It's then that one insecurity makes a violent comeback. "You _didn't_ come back for me, Kate. You came back for the file."

Her heart goes from being frustratingly driven to leaping into her throat.

"And I accepted it because even if it was just to be your _gopher,_ being with you in any capacity was still than being with anyone else. But now, I'm starting to realize that if Ryan and Esposito hadn't left that file with me, I probably never would've seen you again."

Her heart cracks with guilt again, being unable to speak before he turns away again and takes another drink from the bottle in his hands. "Don't think I didn't want to see you, Castle. Because I did, but... but I was scared and felt that I..." she takes another pause as he turns around and glares at her, "that I needed an excuse, okay? I knew you were angry with me and thought that you wouldn't have talked to me any other way. I thought that if I just asked you for the file, it would at least get you talking to me again."

"The fact that you thought you needed an excuse is almost a testament to how much you don't trust me."

"Castle, if you've felt this way for this long, why did you even tell me that you loved me at all?" She asks almost angrily, raising her arms in the air.

His eyes look away for a moment, and when they turn back up to her, she can see plainly the pain. "If Ryan knew he had only one chance to tell Jenny one last thing, what do you think that one thing would be?" He asks her with narrowed eyes. "If Evelyn could have been in that hanger with Roy and could have told him one last thing, what do you think that one thing would be? Or if your father could go back in time and just say one more thing to your mother before she died... what do you think that one thing would be, Kate?"

The fact that he thought his love as that of happily married couples is colliding with the fact that he thought she was going to die. "So you only said it because I was dying." She says in a small voice and leans back. "And you don't really feel that way... just like I feared."

He lets out a dark chuckle and looks back up to her. "If you don't know by now that I really do love you, maybe you really are blind."

"Castle, there's a litany of reasons why I lied to you and I thought that when we finally jumped into this that it wouldn't matter that much anymore. And I don't _want_ it to matter because despite what the coma you're drinking yourself into is telling you, I _do_ want to be with you. I wouldn't even _be_ here right now if that weren't true, Castle."

"You know something, despite having to walk into that hospital room and see you laughing and giggling away with Josh, when you told me that you didn't remember... I was almost relieved." He confesses, his shoulders sinking. "Because if you didn't remember, then I thought maybe we could just go back to however it was before. That we'd work through your recovery like _partners_ are supposed to and go from there, but... then you didn't even speak to me for two months, so... you know, you'll have to forgive me for thinking that maybe you just don't want to be with me that much."

"Rick, you're talking like you telling me that you loved me that day was the worst mistake you've ever made."

"You think I _wanted_ the first time I tell you that to be while you're lying on the ground with a bullet in your chest while you're shaking in my arms?" He spits, leaning forward again with narrowed eyes. "I did want it to be when you were in my arms, but... but having to say it like that was the last way I wanted it to happen."

"Rick, if you want the truth then it's that those words got to be the only thing that kept my head above water." After he shakes his head again and turns away from her, she continues, moving to the side of his desk, now just a few steps away from him. "You've been keeping my head above water for longer than you know, so... so just tell me what it is you want from me? Just tell me what it is I have to do, because I want us to be together. What do you want from me? To get on my hands and knees and _grovel?_ Just tell me what you want me to do!"

"I want you to leave, Kate." He tells her, his brow arched and eyes sad. "Because I have no clue what to believe in anymore."

She feels her heart shutter violently inside her chest as she stares up into his eyes. She's on the verge of losing him. She's come too far to let that happen. Before she can decide against it, she's leaning forward, pressing her lips up to his in a hard kiss. In a flash, her body ignites with excited nerves, curling her toes inside of her heels and turning her breath in her lungs to nothing. She keeps her lips pressed against him as hard as she can for a long moment, reveling in the feeling of it all.

And after another second, her body tightens at the feeling of his hands gripping her arms, squeezing her as he captures her lips in another hard, emotional kiss, pressing against her. Her spine wracks with electricity, reverberating up to her tingling lips as he kisses her. And her heart is pounding, but whole until she feels his hands quickly shove her off of him. Her breath is robbed from her pounding chest, feeling her head lean forward to chase after him. When reality comes back to her, she opens her eyes and sees his brow straight, eyes closed shut and lips in a thin line.

He lets out a hard breath and released his hands from her arms. "Go."

Her heart in pieces in an instant, she looks away from him and nods. "Fine." On shaky legs, she wisps her way out the door and up the stairs, swiping angrily at a hot tear falling down her cheek.

He pushes out a hard sigh and grabs the bottle from his desk, taking another long, burning swig.

* * *

 _A/N: Originally, I had this chapter ending with Castle being so blacked out drunk that he gives in and Beckett takes him on the desk, with Castle waking up the next morning not remembering what happened. But I didn't really know where I would take it from there. And this next chapter is the only way I know of to get out what needs to get out about Castle's willingness to forgive so easily that makes it fit honestly._

 _But as always, I know I'm going to get crap for this._

 _Get me my red shirt._


	15. Chapter 15

_A/N: So, I might get caught in a bit of a fib I told back with my first story post with this chapter. May or may not, and I know I'm going to get some flak for the second half of this chapter, I just know it. But there's only a few chapters left. And yes, I do know where I'm going. :)_

* * *

She crumples up the tissue in her fingers against her thigh, shoulders drawn in and hunched over sitting on a stool. She sniffles, "I've lost him, Lanie."

Lanie just keeps quiet for the time being, deciding it best to let her get it all out before giving her piece.

She has no tears running down her face, but her eyes are red and burning, and her sinuses are congested with emotion. "I didn't mean to hurt him this badly. It's not like I _wanted_ to hurt him." She says, looking down to the useless tissue in her hands. "He's always been so understanding in the past... and he's always believed in me. But now..." She trails off while looking upward and swiping away at tears that aren't there to swipe away, swallowing thickly.

"Oh, sweetie..." Lanie soothes with a gentle hand on her friend's knee. "Maybe he'll come around."

"No, Lanie." She says with a sad shake of her head. "His faith in me is gone. I had no idea how much hurt he'd been harboring all this time, and... now that I do, I don't know if there's anything left."

"Well, are you gonna try?" Lanie softly asks, gently pushing her.

"I don't know how Lanie. But..." She says, trying her best to get confidence to rise up in her by rolling her shoulders back. "I love him... deeply. And... at one point, he loved me. And if the way he kissed me last night was any indication, he might still have some of those feelings inside him."

"Honey, I know he does. Maybe you just need to wait a while, give it time."

"I don't _want_ to wait anymore, Lanie." She says, a rebellious tear leaking out onto her cheek. She quickly swipes at it, her broken emotions swirling around in her stomach. "He's always given me space when I needed it, but just sitting here waiting for him to call me would-" She's silenced by the sound of the door swinging open.

Both she and Lanie quickly look over toward the door, and Beckett's heart quickly constricts, pulling back her emotions in an instant.

"Alexis..." She breathes, looking toward the taken aback redhead standing in the doorway.

"I-I... was..." The teen stutters, looking between her and Lanie.

Lanie quickly puts a hand on Beckett's knee, speaking in a hushed tone. "She's here for the internship, she started up last week." Lanie explains and stands up.

Alexis points over her shoulder, "I-I'll wait outside."

"No... Alexis." Beckett stops her, getting to her feet on weak legs. "I was just leaving actually." She says with a struggling smile just as she's looking down to the floor and briskly walking around the examining table.

"Kate?" Lanie softly asks.

"I'll call you later, Lanie." She throws her off and steps around Alexis and is out of sight down the hall.

Lanie sighs heavily, hearing the door down the hall slam open, leaving just her and Alexis. "Sorry about that, Alexis." Lanie says, waving the girl in and putting a hand on her hip, once she's sure that the time for her to be the comforting best friend is over.

Alexis smiles and sheepishly steps inside the morgue. "No, it's alright. I'd... prefer not to get in the middle of it, so... I'd just like to get to work."

Lanie's brow pinches together as the girl is sliding her bag off her shoulder. "In the middle of what?"

"I'm aware enough to know that it has something to do with my dad, and if that's the case, I'd prefer not to get involved." Alexis says and cranes her neck, keeping Lanie's curious gaze somewhat nervously.

But Lanie is all too curious to let it go. "How'd you know that?"

Alexis is slipping off her coat when she begins to explain in a hurried voice. "When Dad called me yesterday and said he'd be home tomorrow, I figured something was wrong when he didn't show up and got worried until the doorman called up and said they had a message from the bartender at The Old Haunt saying that he was down in his office and since I know that he doesn't like me to see him when he's upset, something obviously upset him and since I know that he wasn't too eager to leave town with Beckett when he did, it obviously has something to do with her and his feelings for her, and if Beckett's that upset about it, then something obviously happened between the two of them involving Dad getting upset with her and if that's the case, then I know that no matter what it is, he'll end up forgiving her just so he doesn't have to be alone since I know he's always seeking out the affection he missed out in his childhood, so..." Alexis takes a pause, finally looking up to Lanie, whose staring at the girl, gaping, "I'd... prefer not to get involved."

After a moment, Lanie breathes a chuckle. "You know, you might make a good homicide detective, Alexis."

Alexis shakes her head to herself and sinks down into the chair that was, a moment ago, occupied by Beckett, looking reflective and deep in thought. Lanie's quickly getting to form sort of a big sisterly bond with the girl. She's a far cry from Castle professionally speaking, but she can see their resemblance in their smiles and their chipper nature. And this situation between Beckett and her father is obviously bothering her.

"I can give you a minute, Alexis, but it might help to get whatever it is floating around your head out in the open." Lanie says, leaning against the back of the chair across from Alexis.

Alexis looks up with a small smile that Lanie sees every time Castle breezes in right behind Beckett, giving her a small wave of the hand. "I don't want to bother you with my family problems, Dr. Parish."

"No, come on." Lanie encourages as she's sitting down across from her. "I've been trying to hammer some sense into Beckett for four years. It'd be nice to get it from someone who has some of it to spare." She lightly jokes, feeling she's on the right track when she hears Alexis let out a small chuckle despite herself.

After giving herself a small nod, she looks up to Lanie. "I'd like to think that I know my dad better than he does, and... I know that he sees me getting older. And now that I'm about to leave home, he's looking for-" Alexis cuts herself off, stopping the words in her throat and rolling her eyes. She loves her dad too much to paint him in that kind of needy light.

"Looking for what?" Lanie asks, very curious.

Alexis lets out a small breath and steels her resolve. "Looking for someone new to... to dote on." The words hit her with a pang of guilt, not wanting to think her dad can't survive on his own and be happy. "I know that one of his biggest fears is being alone. He spent most of his childhood alone, off at boarding school after boarding school. And before, he had me, so he was happy. But now that I'm going off to college soon, he... needs someone new."

Lanie's softly stunned, her brain bringing arrogant, obnoxious, childish Castle into this new light. And now she understands why Alexis was so hesitant to tell all this to her.

But Alexis is forging ahead. "And I know how he feels about Beckett, and that lately he's been depressed thinking that she's never going to come around. And I don't know what happened between them, but if it got someone as strongwilled as Beckett to cry like that, then Dad must have been really upset. So, I'm willing to bet that it was something she did."

And when Lanie nods to herself in as small a gesture as she can manage, Alexis looks up having caught it. Silently confirming her suspicions, Alexis rolls her eyes slightly and looks back down to the floor.

"When I was growing up and had a problem with someone at school, he'd always tell me... that a writer's most important tool was seeing the world through other people's eyes... putting yourself in their shoes. That's why he's always so understanding. So, no matter what she did, he'll forgive her, if nothing else, just so he doesn't have to be alone. And he'll forgive her even if she isn't really sorry. And I'm not saying she's the type of person that would do it intentionally, but... I don't want to see her take advantage of that."

Lanie feels her heart squeeze at the girl's admission.

"Because he won't be able to see it... but I will."

* * *

His hazy, aching eyes open and his head jolts up, feeling overly large and splitting. "Ugh..." He groans as he pushes himself up off his stomach and sits up on the couch. His hand ruffles his hair for a few seconds, brushing it out and straightening the part that feels out of place. He leans forward on his knees, leaning his face down into his hands, feeling like he just woke up from being run over by a truck.

After a long moment of trying to collect himself and his memories from the previous night, he throws himself back, kicking his legs out. It isn't until his shoe hits against the glass bottle on the floor, making it roll across the carpet and under his desk. So, that's what happened.

He groans again and stands up, cracking his back once he's on his feet. He hasn't done that in a while. He remembers not even having the patience to bother with a glass. Begrudgingly, he shakes his arms out, letting his sport-coat fall onto the couch behind him and starts to wobble up the stairs. Pulling his heavy body up the steep staircase is a chore that he doesn't want to do. But after a minute or two, or what seems like it, he's looking out across the empty bar, a light sunshine gleaming through the glass door. The stools are already on the floor and despite his head still swirling, he can hear someone bustling about.

After a few more steps into the bar, his eyes find a familiar, tall figure with the shaggy blonde hair of one of his bartenders. "Arnold?"

He spins around with a raised brow and a light surprise lifting his half-lidded gaze. "Hey, Mr. C."

Castle looks around to the door, leaning forward to see if anyone else is here, but only ends up seeing the vacancy of the booths and tables. "What're you doing here this early?" He asks and staggers forward.

Arnold looks around the bar with a small smile. "It's almost 11:30, Mr. C." He informs on a chuckle.

"Ugh," Castle groans to himself again, hanging his head as he continues to wobble further into the bar.

Arnold chuckles again and moves about the bar. "Have a seat, Mr. C. You look a bit worse for ware."

"Yeah, sure, rub it in." Castle mutters.

"Here, I'll get you something to help." Arnold says in a friendly tone and puts a small white coffee cup on the bar, turning around to grab a carafe full of coffee and begins to pour.

Castle moans to himself and sloshes himself onto the stool in front of the young bartender, leaning against the bar with his elbows digging into the wood with his hands roughly scrubbing his face. "Let me ask you something, Arnold."

"What's that, Mr. C?" Arnold asks as he's placing the cup of black coffee in front of his boss then turning around and grabbing a small glass and filling it with water from the tap.

"What would you do... if you told a woman you loved her but she lied to you and pretended like she didn't remember that you said it?"

Arnold lets out another small chuckle and turns around, putting two soluble aspirin tablets into the water, "I'm married, Mr. C." He says as he's setting the fizzing glass down in front of him. Castle lets out a sigh, picking up the steaming cup and taking a long sip of the sobering liquid. "But something tells me that there's more to this than just that."

Castle lets out another depressing sigh, grabbing the glass of water and downing the dissolved tablets in a few quick gulps. He sucks his teeth and continues. "A while back, my partner had been shot."

"Is she alright?" Arnold quickly asks, knowing he works with a detective from the NYPD.

But Castle waves him off. "No, yeah, she's fine. But... I was standing next to her when it happened, and while she was on the ground... I let her know how I felt." He says, figuring he could end the story there.

But after a moment of pause, watching his boss take another sip of the coffee in front of him, he speaks. "So... you told her that you loved her when she had been shot?"

"Yeah," He says in a hoarse voice after burning his throat on the liquid. His arms can feel her shaking and trembling in them as she lays in the dry grass on that hot, humid day of early summer. "She was out for a few weeks before she woke up. And when she did, I went to see her in the hospital... where she told me that all she could remember was standing at the podium giving a speech before everything went black."

Arnold nods to himself. It's common knowledge around the bar that their boss works with the police. He was hired just after Mr. C took over and rejuvenated the place. "But she _did_ remember."

"Yep," Castle says with his cup against his lips. He takes another long sip, finishing off the bitter liquid just as Arnold is turning around and grabbing the coffee pot to refill it for him. "And she told me last night that she remembered and that she's been lying to me this whole time."

Arnold nods as he puts the carafe back on the burner. "Well... if you're asking my opinion, Mr. C, I think that you should focus on what you loved about her."

Castle lets out a heavy sigh and looks down into the dark coffee uninterestingly before he takes another bitter sip. "She's strong, but... graceful at the same time. She's always smarter than I think her to be. And despite her little jabs at me, she's funny. But she's... weighed down. She doesn't like anyone to see her vulnerable."

Arnold nods, "She'll fail doing something alone before she asks for help to succeed."

Castle lets a bitter chuckle escape just before he takes another drink from his coffee cup. "And she won't admit that she failed when you do try to help her." Castle shakes his head, setting his cup down onto the bar. "At least that's how she used to be."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, well... she's asked me for help here and there, and..." He begins, the images of their previous night together stuck at that dingy backwater motel flashing in his mind and body, "she's shown me her vulnerable side a few times. So, she obviously trusts me along those lines in _some_ capacity. And she's... remarkably beautiful. She has a gorgeous smile. And legs..." He groans and feels pulled into himself for a second.

All his bartender does is chuckle softly and takes a small pause. "Well, if you're asking me if it's worth the risk, my wife and I are very happily married, so..."

"Yeah, so was I until she cheated on me and ran off to Florida with her director." He mumbles.

"Oh, I don't think your partner would do that to you, Mr. C."

"How would you know?"

Arnold smiles fully, ending on a grin when he pulls it back. "My wife's a bit of a firebrand too, Mr. C. It's not easy for those strong, independent, hard-willed women to dedicate themselves to someone else, because it means showing you a lot of things they keep hidden. You know that they're there, but as far as she's concerned-"

"They only exist to her, yeah, I get it." Castle mutters, he says while rubbing his temples.

"But once she does, it'll be worth all this heartache, Mr. C."

Castle looks up to his bartender. "Anyone ever tell you that you live with your head in the clouds?"

He chuckles and shakes his head. "It's a lot better than living with your head in the sand."

"Touche." Castle nods and finishes off his second cup of black coffee, his head still splitting down the middle. "I always used to tell my daughter to look at the world through other people's eyes if she had a problem with someone."

"Pretty good advice."

Castle lets out a sigh, pushing himself off the stool, feeling heavy. "And there's only one way I can do that objectively right now." He says with a heavy heart and takes out his wallet, putting a twenty down on the bar in front of his bartender with a smile. "Thanks for the help."

* * *

 _A/N: I know I'm going to get called out here. If not, remain a guest reviewer and cock your hammers back. Don't fire till you see the whites of my eyes._


	16. Chapter 16

_A/N: Wow, not one called me on it. Secret is safe, I guess. Thanks for all of you who've followed this story thus far. I've gotten a lot of great feedback from this story, and I've loved all of it. So thanks always for all the ups and support. :)_

* * *

He rolls up just one pair of jeans and stuffs them into the bottom of the shoulder bag that's sitting on his bed, just before he folds up another casual flannel button-up into a tight square and shoves it inside, along with his laptop. He catches Alexis walk in out of the corner of his eye and looks up, flipping his bag closed. "Hey, sweetie." He says in a lower than normal voice.

Alexis leans against the door jam to his bedroom with crossed arms. "Are you sure you have to do this, Dad?"

He lets out a long sigh, not pleased with his own decision, but confident it's the only way. "It's the only way I know of to get my head back on straight, Alexis."

"Take off the rose-colored glasses?"

He looks back up at her and smiles softly, "Yes and no."

Alexis nods and kicks her foot about across the floor. "I called her agent for you. She's in Vancouver filming a soap opera."

"You called her agent?" He asks with a quirked brow, pulling his shoulder bag over his neck.

Alexis smiles and shrugs one shoulder. "I used a French accent."

Rick smiles fully, being lifted out of his internal sorrow and struggle by his daughter. "Thank you, pumpkin."

Alexis shoves off the door jam when her father takes a step forward, not wasting time in wrapping her arms around his torso in a loving hug, squeezing his ribs as hard as she can to let him know that she cares about him. "I love you, Dad."

He smiles and rubs his daughter's back tenderly. "I love you too, sweetie." He says and playfully twirls her widely around, his heart skipping when she giggles. When they separate, they begin to walk out into his office, and he continues. "You know, your grandmother would tell me to just go talk to her directly." He says, trying to seek out another voice for advice.

"I love gram as much as you do, Dad, but I don't think she's really in a place to be offering sound advice on relationships." Alexis says under her breath.

And Rick belts out with a laugh. "I'll be sure to tell her you said that sometime."

Alexis smiles despite herself and continues through to the living room with her father, slowing to a meandering pace near the couch while he continues into the kitchen to grab a few more things. "So, do you know how long you'll be gone this time?"

Pulling open a drawer to grab a pen, he answers "I'm not sure. It shouldn't be more than a few days... hopefully. But you have my credit card for as long as you need it. So you have my permission to go crazy."

Alexis meanders in between the two stools under the island and raises a brow. "Are you telling me that so I won't go crazy?"

"Well, you're a smart girl, Alexis. I'm sure that if you do, you'll make it so I'll never find out about it." He says with a smile. "But... I'm writing down both Ryan and Esposito's numbers in case of emergencies."

"Not Beckett?"

Rick nods his head off to the side and clicks the pen closed, clipping it onto the lining of his pocket. "I can't be sure where her head is right now. And I'm sure that if you call either one of them, Beckett will know within a few seconds anyway, so..." He shrugs and moves out of the kitchen toward the door.

"I'll be fine, Dad. Don't worry." Alexis waves off his worries as he's straightening the strap of his shoulder bag. Rick turns back around and smiles, opening his arms to her again, which she doesn't hesitate to step into and hug him lovingly again. "What do you want me to say if she comes by?" She asks against his chest.

Rick sighs and lets his daughter go. "If I'm going to do this right, I need to be alone."

Alexis nods, feeling unhappy that her dad is doing this again. Last time he did this, he was gone for a month. "Okay, Dad."

Rick smiles softly, rubbing his daughter's arms and placing a kiss on her forehead before going out the door.

* * *

Her heart is pounding against her throat as she mindlessly waves at the doorman, giving him a sheepish smile, inwardly hoping that he doesn't call her out and ask her what she's doing here. Because she doesn't know. To tell him she's giving him time, to tell him she loves him, to tell him she's willing to wait as long as he did, or maybe just to throw herself at him like she did the night before. She doesn't have a game plan.

But she swallows her hesitation and steels her crawling nerves as she moves down the hall toward his door. She raises her hand, pausing to mindfully decide on the proper amount of force before rapping her knuckles against the wood next to the number marking his loft.

It's late in the afternoon, having finished up half of the mountain of paperwork she was chored with from both the case and the accident. And on top of that, she's tired. She didn't get much sleep the night before, all her energy consumed into willing away painful emotions, which came back full force once she went down to talk to Lanie this morning. But right now, her heart carried her here, to his loft. To do what, her mind has yet to decide upon.

After a long moment, to door flies open, and she's struck yet again by the sight of his daughter. "Hi," Alexis starts with a deer-in-the-headlights expression, "Detective Beckett."

Beckett pushes out a sheepish smile, "Hi, Alexis." She answers in a small voice, "Is... is your dad here?"

Alexis briefly shakes her head before looking back up to Kate. "No, he's-he left about an hour ago."

Her heart sink, an odd sense of slimy relief washing over her as she lets herself untense for a second. "Oh... do you know where he went?"

Alexis's nervousness makes her feel small in front of this usually confidently strong woman, trying to will herself to match it. "He told me not to tell you."

Kate can physically feel her heart crack inside of her chest as the girl's words hit her. She lefts her eyes drift shut, not knowing who to blame more for this and being even more clueless as to how to fix it. She nods her head and looks down to the floor. "I understand." She says with a heavy smile and turns back down the hall.

But Alexis feels a tug in her heart. She hesitates for a long moment, watching from the doorway as Kate starts slowly back down the hall. "He'll forgive you." She calls out to her.

Kate turns, her brow arched as she looks over her shoulder to Alexis. She stops in her tracks and takes a step back toward the door.

"Maybe not right away, but... he'll forgive you... for whatever it is that you did."

Kate lets out a tense breath passed her blocked up throat, "H-he didn't tell you?"

Alexis shakes her head, "I told him if he didn't want to tell me then I didn't have to know." She watches as Kate nods quickly. "But whatever it is, no matter how bad, he'll forgive you... even if you aren't really sorry for doing it."

Kate looks back up to Alexis, her heartstrings being tugged with guilt and longing at the same time. "I think he knows it's hard for me to say, but... I am."

Alexis nods again as her eyes fall down to the floor. She then turns around and paces into the loft, leaving the door open in a silent invitation inside, which she takes after a moment, sliding the door closed behind her. Alexis can feel herself feign confidence, a confidence she needs right now to stand up for someone she loves against someone she knows he loves. She spins around on a heel and starts, "My dad has always hated being alone. And right now, he says he's taking some time to himself to try and see things from your point of view."

Kate feels her heart thaw and her stomach untangle. "That..." She begins on a hard chuckle, "that doesn't really sound like him."

"Well," Alexis begins and shrugs her shoulders in a small gesture, "he says it's the only way to be objective and get his head back on straight. But..." Alexis briefly trails off, hardening her shoulders, "I know that he'll end up forgiving you and going after you again... just so he doesn't end up alone. Ending up alone has always been his worst fear deep down. And... there have been people in his life that I've had to watch take advantage of that."

Kate's heart goes back into her throat, feeling there's another pair of crosshairs on her suddenly.

But despite her nervous voice, Alexis continues. "I know how he feels about you, Detective Beckett. A-and I know that he'll forgive you and ask you to forget about whatever it is that happened between you two. And I want to see my dad happy... b-but not if people keep taking advantage of his willingness to understand and forgive and continue to break his heart. Because I know that he won't be able to see it if you are."

"Alexis... I wouldn't do that." Kate says in a constricted voice, shrugging her shoulders.

"Maybe not intentionally. But if you're not sorry for hurting him now and just accepted his forgiveness when he gives it to you, I-I don't know that I could stand by and watch you hurt him again because you expect him to forgive you just as easily next time." She says with a nervous shake in her voice.

Kate breathes out a long, silent breath, "We've had our share of problems, Alexis. But I want us to work through them and be with him."

"I know how much he wants to be with you, but..." Alexis says and steels her nerves as much as she can, "I-I'm sorry, Detective Beckett, but unless you're here to say that you're through hurting each other and that you're truly sorry for hurting him... t-then I'm not gonna tell you where he is."

Kate nods again, understanding what the girl is saying. She's trying to protect her father from a broken heart.

"And you won't be able to find him on your own. I'm the only one who knows where he is." Alexis cuts into her thoughts.

Kate lets out a soft breath, looking back up to Alexis, who has a slightly scared sheen in her eyes. "You know, it's easy to take someone for granted when they don't ask for anything in return for everything they do for you. I mean," Kate says with a bit of an eye roll, "he can be real annoying sometimes, but... at the end of the day, I always knew I could count on him to be by my side. And... I guess I've been a bit guilty of not realizing what he's been going through while I was taking time to heal after what happened. There's a lot that I haven't told him yet... and I need the chance to have him at least hear me out."

Alexis looks over at Kate with an arched brow, sealing her lips together after a moment. And when Kate sees that, she feels her heart sink. "He's at the lake house."

Kate freezes, looking back up. "I-I didn't know you guys had a lake house."

"We don't." Alexis shrugs. "He bought it for my mom a few months before she left him, but they never used it before they split up. He let her have it in the divorce, but... it's secluded and small, so it's too rustic for my mom's taste. So, it just sits empty."

Kate shakes her head, doing a small double-take. "If she doesn't use it, why did she keep it?"

Alexis looks off to the side, pursing her lips. "Spite. She likes to think that he thinks about her using it with her... lovers, but he's smarter than that. But since he knows that she never uses it, he goes up there when he doesn't want anyone to find him. It's a few hours north. He said he would only be gone for a few days, but the last time he went up there was after his divorce with Gina was finalized. I didn't see him for a month, so... I'm..."

"You're worried about him." Kate finishes for her, and Alexis nods sadly. "Well, I know what I want to say to him now, so... I'll be sure to bring him back in one piece."

Alexis nods. "I'll write down the address for you."

* * *

"Payment has been cleared and in full, insurance has been confirmed, license has been checked, and..." The salesmen says with a friendly smile right as he's signing the final form, "all we need from you, Mr. Castle, is one last John Hancock."

Rick smirks and quickly scrawls out his signature on the last of the forms, a new candy apple helmet hanging from his hand, deciding to pick out a new leather jacket while he's here. He pushes the form back toward the salesman, who smiles over his mustache and straightens the papers in his hands with a few taps against the counter.

"Your bike is being pulled around now with a full tank. Enjoy the ride, Mr. Castle."

Rick smirks heavily and raises his helmet in the air. "Count on it."

He quickly moves out of the shop and out onto the lot, where one of the other clerks is standing next to his newest purchase. It's Beckett's fault for getting him thinking about this. The second clerk smiles as he's handing Rick the key. "Brand new Victory V-twin 1200, Mr. Castle."

Rick takes the key with a smile and climbs on, turning the key into the side of the engine, pressing down on the starter and letting himself revel in the vibration and the sound of the motorcycle underneath him. He lets out a long breath and tugs his helmet on. He revs the throttle a few times before grabbing the clutch, kicking the shifter into first, and pulling away.

* * *

Kate flies into her apartment, her heart surging with confident purpose as she turns into her large closet and grabs her jacket off the hanger with one hand and her helmet off the top shelf right above it with another. She briskly makes her way into her bedroom, tossing her helmet down onto the bed as she shrugs her jacket over her shoulders and tugging her hair out from under the collar. She grabs her keys off the dresser then turns back to grab her helmet, until another thought occurs to him.

 _You've been keeping my head above water for longer than you know._ Her own words ring in her head.

Her will fires inside of her as she thinks of that, the only proof she has that she would be telling the truth about all of it, letting him know once and for all what he really is to her. She quickly moves back over to her dresser and bends over, opening one of the bottom drawers, moving a few old sweaters she has stowed away, reveiling a small metal box, tucked away in secrecy until now.

It's one of the few things she managed to pull away from the wreckage of her old apartment.

She pulls open the snaps of the lid and takes the paperback out of its hiding place, tucking it in between her turtleneck and her jacket and zips it up. With another confident breath, she grabs her helmet again and heads out.

She has to give him a lot more credit than she has been. Chasing after someone this hard is exhausting.


	17. Chapter 17

_A/N: Never expected most of the flak to come from my choice of motorcycle for Castle. Really? I only picked a Victory V-Twin 1200 because my older brother has one. Thing's a beast._

Anyway, next chapter is going to be the epilogue. It's going to be short, probably less than 1,000 words or so. Real tiny. Let me know what you think. :)

* * *

She hasn't ridden this long in years. She's never gotten the chance. But despite her nervous heart palpitating in her throat, she's enjoying being out on the open road on her bike. It's late afternoon and the traffic outside the city is light, even for a Saturday. She has a million rational fears clouding her senses, like not being able to find the place she's headed to, or getting lost, or him still being angry at her. But she's not letting any of them sway her.

He's always pushed her when she felt like giving up, sometimes even on herself. And right now, it would be easy to back down and let him brood on this all by himself. Like he did with her. But she has to get the words out. She has to say them, tell him everything. After that...

She finds the exit after a few hours of riding and turns off the highway. The woods along the side of the road are getting thicker, and the road itself is getting steeper, more winding. After slowing down into third gear, she takes another turn and sees the glistening reflection of the water along the lake gleam through the tree line through the scratched plastic on her helmet. Her throat squeezes tightly when she slows down to take a bend, seeing a couple at the water's edge, with the mother and a young boy with brown hair, no older than three, both splashing the father with water, without a care in the world other than each other.

Her heart quivers with a new kind of want and desire, a new deep seeded longing sewing itself into her mind as she quickly watches the scene play out when she passes it. She holds her breath as she turns away, looking back to the road and going back to finding the road, whose name she's played over like a mantra in her mind ever since she pressed down on the starter to her bike.

She takes another right turn onto a small, narrow road once she finds the marker for the street name, hidden behind the brush, and then carefully weaves her way up the hill, winding up along with the road as it turns through the woods, the tall pine and oak surrounding the small driveway. She sees the small, rustic log cabin come into view through trees, and her skin shivers with fearful nerves. She grabs the clutch and quickly kicks the bike into neutral to slow to a stop.

Her eyes are trained like a hawk on the motorcycle she pulled up beside, a deep cherry red Victory. She shuts her bike off, kicks the stand out, and climbs off. She doesn't notice the smile lifting her face until she pulls her helmet off and shakes her hair out. "Wow." She breathes to herself as she moves around in front of it, running her fingers along the top of the clutch handle, then along the handlebars and up the windshield. Her ribs are squeezes by the childish giggle she feels escape her.

It's a moment before she looks up to the dark green windowed door of the cabin, seeing it cracked open slightly. She then looks back down to the bike and reaches over, feeling the pipes hesitantly with the tips of her fingers. They're still warm. He must have just gotten here. She steels her resolve and moves across the gravel, mindful of the paperback held in between her turtleneck and her jacket. Setting her helmet down on the wooden railing painted red, she softens her stride and stops her hand before it reaches the door.

She can see him through the glass, through the opening of the cabin and through another open door, leaning against another railing on the outside balcony. She'd know those broad shoulders anywhere. An intense longing surging through her heart, she gently pushes the door open and steps through the doorway. She watches him intently, knowing she's been caught. She could hear the echo of her motorcycle's engine reverberate off the walls of the woods when she shut it off, and he clearly heard it.

She sees his head fall down as his neck cranes, and she feels the first pang of hurt hit her, the first needle of many telling her that she should be here. But she's determined to push passed every single one if it means getting to him. She steps around the small coffee table that has a red helmet sitting on it, along with a small green shoulder bag leaning against it and moves toward the open door that leads to the balcony he's standing on. She can see the steps the lead down the hill to the lake before her eyes flit back up to see him shove off the railing.

"Alexis is so grounded." She hears him mutter as he turns around to look at her with a pale expression, a bit of an arch in his brow. Her heart goes back up into her throat after the surge of determination that seeing him again fades. Her blood tightens inside of her veins when she feels the usual warmth his gaze brings her absent. "Beckett, what are you doing here?" He asks with a twinge of sadness in his tone.

Her heart does a single flip-flop before she tastes the words in her mind and looks back up to him. "I love you, Castle."

His arched stare blinks into a blank expression.

And once she has the dam on her words broken, she knows that there's no stopping them now. "And I know I'd be lying if I said that I always have, but... I wouldn't be if I said that I do more than I have anyone else." She begins, feeling her heart rip itself out of her chest to him. "Because I do."

"Kate-"

"I think you're the most..." She stops him, the words pouring out of her, "amazing... childish, kindhearted... gentlest man I've ever met." She says, a smile lifting her lips again. "And... all this time I thought I was growing to love you back. But what I was really doing was realizing that I already did... _madly."_ She says with a shake of her head.

Rick's brow arches again, knitting together in the center before he looks down to the floor with a nod. "Then why did you lie to me?" He asks, looking back up with tightly narrowed eyes. "I've... I've wanted to hear those words for longer than you know, but... how do I know that it's not just you saying it to get back in my good graces?"

She pushes out a chuckle and shakes her head, rolling her eyes slightly. "Castle... if that's all I wanted, I wouldn't even be here right now."

His eyes look away as he takes a pause before nodding his head, then looking down to the floor.

But she knows what it's like to be in his arms now, all from that one night spent in them just a few nights ago. This distance is getting unbearable. "You know, when you started pulling away, I knew that I had to start chasing after _you_ for a change." She says in a light tone, earning herself his eyes again. "I've been chasing after you for two days and already, I can't stand to be apart from you anymore."

"Well..." He says, looking up to her again with a sad brow, "I've known that I was in love with you for a long time now, so you can imagine how I feel."

Kate looks passed him and out toward the water, giving him a small nod. "Castle, if this is how you've felt all this time... it has to be worth it. Doesn't it?"

"Is what worth it?" He asks, looking up to her again with those same sad eyes.

She gives him a small smile, the brief picture of that happy family she saw just a while ago flashing in her mind. "A real relationship. Something real... and serious. Something where I would put both feet through the door, not keep one foot out like I always have. And," she starts, her heart squeezing at the longing she has, "maybe even close the door behind me."

She sees him look away again and hears him swallow thickly. "You still lied to me. You said you didn't want to remember what I said that day, and then you-"

"I-I know..." She says as she takes a step toward him with her hands extended out in front of her, "I know what I said. There are a thousand reasons why I did what I did and if you came here to do what I was told you were going to, then you probably know all of them already. But I am... _truly_ sorry that I hurt you, Castle. My life had just been unraveled. Everything that I used to count on to be there was suddenly gone."

"But _I_ wasn't!" He suddenly spits, leaning forward with a finger jabbed into his chest.

"Castle, with everything that happened between us that night... I didn't know where we stood after Montgomery's death. That changed everything and... I always counted on you to be my partner. But when you told me that you loved me..." She says, trailing off when she feels her eyes burn, "I had to wake up and realize that we _weren't_ just partners... despite my best efforts to keep it that way. And I realized that at the same time that I had just gotten a bullet taken out of my chest. So yes, when I told you that I didn't remember that day in the hospital, it was because it was the only way I could think of at the time to get through it."

"Kate, I didn't even know if I was ever gonna hear from you again after that day."

"Rick, if you want the truth, it's that I thought about you every single day. And I _didn't_ come back to you just because you had what I needed. I came back because you're important to me. I know that I've handled it poorly, but... I need you to know what it is you really are to me." She says, looking up at him again. "I love you, Rick, and..." She begins, unzipping her jacket and reaching inside, "this is the only proof I have that you've always been more to me than just a partner."

She takes out her copy of _Gathering Storm_ and hands it to him, having to lean over to be within reach of his grasp. He takes the book in one hand and brings it in front of him, his brow lowered as he flips open the paperback front cover. She can see the moment when he reads off the words he wrote all those years ago.

"I stood in line for over an hour to get your signature."

 _To Kate, don't get caught in the Storm -Rick Castle_

"What you wrote was perfect." She breaks his silence. He looks up to her after a moment, choking on words with an agape jaw. "After my mom died, I found it very hard to believe that there was any good left in the world. But then I found your novels and... you know, at the end of the story, after being up against all the odds, good still came out in the end. You always made hope find a way. You always made the good guys find a way and... in a way, it gave me hope that I would too."

"Kate..." He says with a shake of his head, looking back down to the book in his hands, "don't get caught in the Storm... it was a platitude that I wrote for signings, it-"

"I _know_ that you didn't mean anything by it, Rick. But... even then you seemed to know just what to say."

"But, Kate, this..." He says, still in disbelief, "I would've remembered you."

She smiles and breathes out a small laugh, "I was just another face in a line that went out the door, Rick."

" _Your's_ is not just another face, Kate." He says, his tone suggesting that the words snuck out, making her smile even more when she hears them. "But..."

"I told you last night that you've been keeping my head above water for longer than you know. Well... now you know, Rick." With that, he looks back up to her with an arched brow, a small twinge of a smile teasing one side of his lips, but only for a second. "You know, one of the first meaningful things you ever said to me was that when I come up against a wall... I don't back down. Well, here I am. Not backing down. I'm in love with you, Rick, and I want to be in a relationship that I'm not afraid to invest myself into. Where I'm not hiding from the future because I've been stuck in the past. And I wouldn't be ready for any of it if it wasn't for you because I want all of it to be with you, Rick."

His lips close and his eyes glisten, the water shimmering with sunlight behind him, the book now hanging loosely in his hands, looking over at her in silence.

After too long of a pause, she looks away and nods. "But... you were gracious enough to give me time when I needed it, so..." She says, her heart cracking inside of her chest as she turns to leave, just as he did when she asked him to, "I guess you can call me when you-"

The words stop when she feels him grab her arm and yank her back over to him, their lips slamming against each other in an earthquake of breathtaking passion that ignites her entire being in a flash. She kisses him back as hard as she can before she realizes that she's even doing it. And after a long moment of her just pressing her lips to him, she regains her footing on legs that have just given out, opens her lips and kisses him with more passion than she has anyone else in her life, quickly weaving her arms around his neck, her fingers fisting in his hair as he returns her fervor.

"Please be sure about this." He says into her mouth with his arms pulling her into him.

"Absolutely." She moans and recaptures him.

With another deep kiss, his hands find the opening of her jacket just as hers did the same with his. Their jackets hit the floor just as he's lowering her down to the couch.

* * *

 _A/N: update: slightly omitted part near the end.  
_


	18. Epilogue

_A/N: Hope you guys like the epilogue. It's short, I know. But I think it wraps everything up pretty neatly. I've liked writing this story, overall. Thanks for all of those who've followed and reviewed. You guys rock! :)_

* * *

She stirs in bed, sated, lazy, tired, warm... _and alone,_ she realizes when she reaches for him underneath the tossed sheets.

She cracks her eyes open and sees his side of the bed empty. She groans inwardly as she stretches, relaxes back into bed for a second to let her muscles ease, then flips the covers off her, setting her bare feet down onto the hardwood floor of the cabin. She stands up, stretches again by reaching for the ceiling, nakedly pads her way through the bedroom, grabbing his flannel shirt off the light fixture on the wall next to the doorway and slips her arms through it, only bothering to button three buttons.

She loves wearing his shirts.

She looks out the window that looks out toward the lake and sees him standing on the balcony, clad in only a pair of jeans. She smiles as the sunlight of the early spring hits his skin. Her bottom lip falls in between her teeth with crackling want and deeply loving desire as she pads her way through the cabin, stepping over their leather jackets that they let fall to the floor...

Again.

She gets hit with a hard whaft of nostalgia from the memory of that day when they peeled their jackets off in that exact same spot she just stepped over.

She steps out through the sliding door as stealthily as she can and reaches out, running her hands over his sides from behind, stepping into him and running her hands around his front then up to his shoulders, pressing up on her toes to kiss the skin behind his ear tenderly and teasingly. "You know," She breathes into his ear just before placing another kiss behind his ear, "could you give me the luxury of waking up in your arms once in a while?"

She hears him chuckle under his breath and turn his head. "I'm sorry." He apologizes with a soft smirk and moves his arm to pull her into his side. She keeps her arms around his chest as she rests her head down against his shoulder. "I was just having some trouble sleeping, that's all."

"And you couldn't have just laid there?" She proddes jokingly. "You do it all the time at home."

"Well, at home, I don't always get this view." He says and looks out toward the glistening lake shimmering through the tree line.

She smiles and lays her head back down on his shoulder, looking out toward the water. "I forgot how beautiful the lake was."

She feels his lips press down against her hair for a second, "That's not the view I was talking about."

She rolls her eyes, tongue in cheek and shakes her head against his shoulder. "You know, babe, you snuck us up here kind of suddenly." She says, looking up to him after a moment of admiring the shimmer of the water. "We haven't been up here since we first got together."

"That was a _great_ afternoon." He says in a low voice, making her chuckle. "Great night, too."

"Even better morning." She says sexily, swirling her finger around against his chest in a small circle.

"We've uh... we've had a lot of great mornings, haven't we?" He asks, looking down at her with a soft smile.

"After ten months? Yeah, we've..." She moans, pressing herself against him, "had some incredible mornings."

"And we've..." He starts again, looking down to the ground, "come a long way since then."

"We've had our fair share of trials and tribulations, that's for sure." She's beginning to wonder what got him thinking about this. There's something off in his eyes.

"And we've always come out on the other side, right?" He asks, slightly tugging her into his side.

"And come out stronger, yeah." She answers quickly. "Rick, what's going on here?" She asks, pulling back a bit, instantly feeling him stiffen like a board in her arms. "You've been acting strange all week. First, you insist that we ride up here for the weekend, taking a scenic route. And don't think I didn't notice how far away you were last night."

He only answers her by clicking his jaw and maintaining a lack of eye contact.

And she begins to worry. "What's going on here, babe?" She asks tenderly, putting a warm hand over his heart.

"Well," He says in a shaky voice. "I-I just..." He begins and reaches into his pocket. Her eyes follow him, feeling him almost tremble in her arms as he tugs his hand out of his pocket. "Didn't want to make it too easy for you to run away, I guess."

She sees his balled up fist as he's holding it out in front of him, and something in her heart erupts. With widening eyes, she looks back up to him, seeing incredible hesitation and shaking fear.

He opens his hand and shows her the ring. "Kathrine..."

"Yes." She says with a lift in her voice.

He lets out a short breath, "Houghton..."

"Yes." She repeats.

He freezes, looking up to her with shock. "B-but I didn't even ask yet."

"I don't care. Yes."

"Y-you d-"

"No, _no_ , yes."

"No?"

" _Not_ no."

" _Not_ no?"

"No, yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes!"

"Really yes?"

" _Yes!"_

She yelps and leaps forward, smashing her lips against his in an emotionally charged kiss, feeling warm tears fall down her cheek. His arms move around and pull her in. She feels completely weightless as his kiss flows through her. He kisses her sweetly over a face-splitting smile and leans his forehead down against hers, framing his face with her hands.

Ten months ago, she went chasing after someone. She went running toward something. She went chasing after him, and it led her here. To the very place she finally got what she'd been running from these past years before them, which now, all seem like a distant memory of a distant person that wasn't really her. She found it hard to believe she could fall for someone harder than she had for him before, but ever since that day in this very cabin, all she's done is fall harder.

And now, they finally have what they've both been chasing after.


End file.
